


Honor Bound

by WriterKos



Series: Joy Buchanan Series [4]
Category: NCIS
Genre: Crime, F/M, Romance, Suspense, casefile
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-09-22
Updated: 2012-09-22
Packaged: 2017-11-14 19:39:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 18
Words: 23,974
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/518820
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WriterKos/pseuds/WriterKos
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The team investigates the murder of a female officer, and uncovers a web of lies and deceit. </p><p> </p><p>Story four of the Joy Buchanan series. Follows A Geek walk into a bar, Entertaining angels unaware and Intermezzo.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. I feel pretty

_**I feel pretty** _

_I feel pretty,_ _  
_ _Oh, so pretty,_ _  
_ _I feel pretty, and witty and gay,_ _  
_ _And I pity_ _  
_ _Any girl who isn't me today._ _I feel charming,_ _  
_ _Oh, so charming--_ _  
_ _It's alarming how charming I feel,_ _  
_ _And so pretty_ _  
_ _That I hardly can believe I'm real._

_**West Side story – I feel pretty lyrics** _

The alarm clock starts playing soft music, waking up the slumbering man on the bed. It is playing an old Broadway song, and his sleep-fogged brain tries hard to connect the melody to the lyrics.

_I feel pretty,_ _  
_ _Oh, so pretty,_ _  
_ _I feel pretty, and witty and gay,_ _  
_ _And I pity_ _  
_ _Any girl who isn't me today._

He smiles against his pillow, and slides his hand to the left side of the bed. And he finds it empty, which immediately makes his smile disappear from his face. He raises his head from his pillow, and looks to his side. The sheets are slept in, and the mark of a body is still on the bed. The mark of a head is still on the pillow, along with a long curly brownish strand of hair, which he delicately collects with his fingers and throws on the floor. He pulls the slept in pillow to his face, and is assaulted by the faint smell of sweat and peaches, which immediately gives him a morning wood.

 _Down boy_ , he says to himself.

The music is still playing.

_I feel charming,_ _  
_ _Oh, so charming--_ _  
_ _It's alarming how charming I feel,_ _  
_ _And so pretty_ _  
_ _That I hardly can believe I'm real._

Since Special Agent Joy Buchanan joined NCIS's Major Case Response Team four months ago, that was usually how Special Agent Timothy McGee would wake up. They had been working non-stop on several cases, and her insights had immediately made her an invaluable asset to the team, however things were still restrained.

Tony still made up variations of his name, and Buchanan corrected him every single time she heard him butchering McGee's name.

Ziva handled with Buchanan with a little bit of reserve and a lot of respect, both women recognizing in each other the survivor gene.

Gibbs had a hawk's eye on his agent, just watching and waiting to see for any sign that she might be slipping or losing it. The ghost of what had happened in LA still lingered, and the Gibbs' reserved attitude towards his new agent lead other agents in the agency to treat her with reserve as well. She was tolerated and respected, even feared, but had not really been welcomed in the ranks of NCIS.

NCIS NCIS NCIS NCIS

McGee, however, was in seventh heaven. For the very first time since he started working at NCIS, he had a partner who acted as if he had an equal value in the equation, not only a sidekick. She listened to his suggestions, weighed his opinion and corrected his mistakes with a firm, but not bossy, hand.

She valued his skills in computing sciences, but forced him to exercise and apply his investigative skills more than ever.

In the last month alone, he had cracked the case with his deduction skills three times, which brought a rare compliment from Gibbs and friendly taps on his back from DiNozzo. She just smirked at him and shook her head and went back to her computer.

She suggested they start training martial arts to keep fit, and was not afraid of kicking his ass to the mat if he thought his superior size was an advantage. He didn't mind being pummeled by a pint-sized woman, as long as she ended up lying on the floor on top of him. Or he on top of her, it doesn't matter.

On a personal level, they sat down shortly after their encounter after she went to visit him in his house. She explained that she had no problem with this … whatever they had… but it must not mess with work. They tactically agreed not to tell their coworkers anything, but act professionally during working hours. What they did on their off hours was their problem. If anybody asked, they would shrug as if it was no big deal.

He mentioned again the matter of protection with her and watched her face cloud a little. She mentioned she had been hurt, badly hurt, and her periods were so out of order that she had to take heavy hormonal doses just to regulate them, and also so she would not be crippled by the cramps. She took his hand and slid it against her skin on her arm, where the hormonal implant was located. The chances of her ever getting pregnant were slim, and if she ever did get pregnant, she would have to be considered as a high risk pregnancy. As they both had been celibate for so long before they met and were regularly tested at NCIS, they mutually agreed to rely on the implant and on their devotion to each other.

The sex was incredible. Despite the severe mocking that McGee had endured from DiNozzo during his years at NCIS, he was indeed a healthy male with a normal libido. DiNozzo never really understood that, given the right circumstances, with the right partner, _a willing partner_ , McGee would respond to his biological drive and act like any other red blooded male.

Despite Buchanan's initial reservations and shyness on their encounters, they found a synchrony and a satisfaction both agents never imagined possible to achieve.

For the first time ever, Joy was comfortable in being nude with a male who, as incredible as it might seem to her mind, had no judgmental attitude towards her scars. He revered them as banners of her strength, and had no qualms about telling her that.

McGee, on the other hand, was with a woman who had no qualms about saying that she wanted him, _the geek_ , both sexually and emotionally, and she had no reserve about having her desires known and demanding them to be met immediately.

He, even during his very dry years, had occasional encounters, and even had some eventual encounters with Abby, which always left him physically satisfied and emotionally empty, as she would always go back to her _I love you like puppies_ philosophy and they would be back to square one. He always ended alone, and she was back with the newest flavor of the month.

Buchanan, however, did not have sex for four years. Either due to her very demanding job or her scars, McGee wanted to know, and asked her one lazy Saturday morning, after they made love.

NCIS NCIS NCIS NCIS

He slides her hair out of the way of his kisses, and slowly moves his mouth along the soft curve of her spine, feeling the faint ridges of the beatings she received as a child under the sensitive skin of his lips. "Why?" he murmurs against her skin.

She tenses.

"I'm not asking about the scars. I'm asking why you waited." She looks at him, curious to know where he is leading this conversation.

"Why did you wait four years for …" he wiggles his eyebrows "… you know." She lies on her back and studies his face, trying to figure out how much of the story she should tell him.

"He was a friend." She starts slowly. "A good friend. A profiler as well."

McGee is supporting his head on his hands, his elbows on the pillow, looking at her.

"We danced around each other for a few months. We approached it slowly and when finally we…" she looks at him and smiles "we did it, he couldn't see me past my scars."

She wets her dry lips, and her eyes are vague, fixed in some memory of the past.

"He would look at the scars and keep on imagining the trauma and the pain and … he could not understand how I could function, because, according to all psychology books he had read till then I should be a vegetable, or at least, a very deranged person."

McGee keeps looking at her with attentive eyes.

"The relationship went sour then. I couldn't stand how he looked at me, as a case study that should be picked apart and analyzed and he couldn't help himself. Because that's what he was trained to do. It was ingrained in him to pick a person apart and put together the pieces in order to understand them, and he couldn't figure me out like that," she looks at McGee, "every time he tried to put me together; the pieces wouldn't fit. The puzzle wouldn't be complete, there would be pieces lacking or more than the ones necessary to fix it."

"He was very clinical about things, and he did not accept any spiritual explanation I gave him." She smirks, "he tried to argue several times with dad about how God was the opium of people, but he never won the discussion with him."

She pauses and fiddles with the duvet covering her breasts.

"I don't," pause, "remember much. _Of that time_." She looks at McGee, "what I do remember are some flashes, glimpses of darkness, emptiness and pain; and a foul smell in the air that would impregnate your clothes, your skin, sometimes," she nervously fidgets on the bed, "your very soul."

"But when I met dad, and mom and the guys, they changed me. They literally prodded until I came out of my shell, and until now they were my support net in everything."

"You really love your family, don't you."

"They are the only reason I am alive today."

They would always meet in his apartment, as hers was still a mess of boxes and mismatched pieces of furniture. Sometimes they would simply stay up until late at night, talking about the case or having dinner, and she would walk Jetro whenever he was too busy to do it himself.

But sometimes she would simply look at him with a fixed expression in her eyes. If they were alone in his place she would walk up to him, give him her hand and lead him to the bedroom, where their moans and gasps would fill the air.

Sometimes he would catch her staring at him with the same expression at work, and he would hiss "Joy", she would blink, and the expression would be gone and her professional mask would be back in place.

Their staring at each other didn't go unnoticed at the office however.

NCIS NCIS NCIS NCIS

"Probie, I had enough of your making goo-goo eyes at each other. Spill" says DiNozzo, when the curiosity got the better of him and he had to resort to desperate measures, cornering McGee in the men's room. However Joy had prepared him for this exact situation.

"Tony, move."

"No, you won't leave this men's room until you tell me what is going on between you and probette."

"She will still get back at you for that, Tony."

"I'm not afraid of her."

"You should be, she has four brothers, you know. And they were, according to her descriptions, the four horsemen of the apocalypse. The kings of the pranks, I would watch how I take my coffee from now on."

"You think she would put something in it, like Ziva did on Halloween?"

"I know she will get back at you. After all, the Buchanans' family motto is " _don't get mad, get even_ "."

"Uhm, ok, thanks for the warning, but you are changing the subject. What is going on between you two?" Tony wants to know, curious.

"Ok, I will tell you," Tony looks gleeful "only if you tell me what is going on between you and Ziva," Tony's face shuts down immediately.

"There is nothing going on between me and Ziva," says Tony with a straight face.

 _Liar, liar,_ _pants on fire,_ McGee thinks.

"Then there is nothing going on between me and Buchanan," says McGee with a smile on his face.

"Nothing,"

"Nothing,"

"Nothing like me and Ziva," Tony asks.

"Why, is there something going on with Ziva, Tony?"

That shuts Tony up, he loves Ziva but he is too afraid of her to spill their secrets like that.

"No, nothing." He lies.

"So then it is nothing," says McGee.

"Uhm…" Tony takes a step back; McGee washes his hands, dries them, and walks out of the men's room.

As Tony didn't get any hint from McGee, to his utter frustration, he assigns Ziva to get some answers.

During a case, both women had to stay on a stakeout in the car, waiting for the signal from the rest of the team. Ziva would glance at Buchanan, who was placidly waiting for hours without showing a sign of impatience. Ziva sees her move on the seat uncomfortably and pounces. "So, you and McGee, you are getting along well."

"He is a great agent, with huge potential," Buchanan answers in a monotone voice, her eyes on the warehouse they are watching.

"He likes you a lot." Ziva is fishing for information.

Buchanan glances briefly in Ziva's direction and smiles. But she keeps silent.

"He is a very good man, and good agent and," Buchanan turns to look at Ziva "he deserves the attention and care you are giving him." Buchanan studies Ziva.

"I just wanted you to know,"

"Thanks,"

"I think…"

"What do you want to know, Ziva?" Buchanan asks directly, never being known as someone to mince words.

"Are you sleeping with him?" Ziva wants to know, and immediately regrets it when she sees Buchanan's defenses going up and her eyes turning into ice. The air in the car becomes artic cold.

"If you are really that interested in him, why haven't you slept with him yet? You have known him for years." Buchanan wants to know angrily.

"That's not it," Ziva tries to fix the mess she made, and Buchanan looks at her angrily. "I worry about him, and he is my friend, and also a team member, Gibbs' rule number twelve says…"

"Ha, rule number twelve," mutters Buchanan.

"What, you don't obey Gibbs' rules?" Ziva wants to know in an astonished tone of voice.

"That's not it," answers Buchanan with a grimace. "I just don't think they are set in stone." Pause "they should work more like guidelines, not like rules."

"Why?" Ziva wants to know, curiously.

"Because sometimes things change. People change." Buchanan returns her eyes to the warehouse.

"I only have one single rule, all the others are not important when compared to this one." Ziva's curiosity is piqued, as Buchanan never speaks her mind like that when they are with the rest of the team.

"What rule would that be?"

"Whatever happens," Buchanan looks in Ziva's eyes, and tries to convey all the seriousness of her rule " _don't die."_

Ziva is deeply disturbed, and looks back at the warehouse. She does not ask any other questions of her teammate. Later, Ziva is surprised when Buchanan breaks the heavy silence in the car.

"Ziva," Buchanan calls softly and waits until she looks at her, " _he_ keeps the monsters at bay."

After that night, Ziva never asked Buchanan or McGee any other questions about their relationship ever again.

NCIS NCIS NCIS NCIS

She never stayed until morning, always going home to change for the work day. McGee gives a very male, very satisfied smile, stretches his muscles and leaves the bed, getting ready for the new day, anxious to see his partner again.

It was going to be a great day.


	2. Definitely not a date

**_Definitely not a date_ **

It was going to be a terrible day.

He had a flat tire on the way to the office, he got some grease on his suit pants that probably wouldn't make his dry cleaners very happy, and had no time to buy coffee before going up to the bullpen. He could feel his shoulders getting tense, in preparation for the Gibbs' slap he would receive for being late.

Shortly after McGee arrived in the squad room - he didn't even have time to greet his colleagues and sit down - Gibbs barked: "dead petty officer in Montrose Park."

They arrived at the Park and went where the pour soul had met her demise.

"Who are we looking at?"

McGee looks up from his PDA, and recites at the info he got from the name of the victim.

"Our victim is Petty Officer Lorraine Gordon, 34, she was chief of the Cerimonial Office for the Department of Defense. She was responsible for the coordination of parties and events, hiring of catering and other services needed for several higher ups on the DoD."

He kneels close to the victim and talks to Ducky.

"Hello Jethro,"

"Hello Ducky,"

"Our poor lady here had met a terrible demise, she fought bravely but she had no chance against her attacker."

"Time of death, Ducky?"

"Liver temperature indicates between midnight and two am. But I can tell you more once I have her on the table." Ziva approaches Ducky and Gibbs.

"She was attacked over there," she points somewhere left "close to the jogging trail, then dragged here where he beats her, rapes her and leaves her to die," says Ziva, shaking her head. "The trail is well used, covered with dead leaves, no fresh soil, we won't be able to lift usable footprints from it."

"Ok, then, McGee, pictures, DiNozzo, sketches, Ziva, see if you can get something from our Good Samaritan who reported the body found this morning." He points to a nervous looking jogger who is beyond the crime scene, talking with a police officer. "Buchanan, you with me."

Silence.

"Buchanan," Gibbs barks and sees his agent with an empty look on her face, staring at the victim with a frown.

McGee notices she zoned out and walks towards her.

"Hey, you ok?"

"Uhm?"

"You zoned out for a moment there."

"Anything wrong Buchanan," asks Gibbs.

She looks at Gibbs, confused.

"Where is the dog?"

NCIS NCIS NCIS NCIS

Gibbs and Buchanan are standing over the corpse, watching Ducky and Jimmy putting her in the body bag.

"Why did you deduct that she was walking her dog, Agent Buchanan?"

"She was chief of Cerimonial for the DoD. These types of people are not caught dead without a good hairstyle and lipstick, yet she was found dead with her hair in a messy bun, a ratty old pullover which is at least ten years old, probably from the time she was an undergrad student. She doesn't have any hint of makeup on and she hasn't shaved her legs.

Gibbs looks at the dead body and can see all the details she listed. He is not convinced yet.

"That isn't the only reason she could be in the park."

"She is a smart lady, very highly regarded professionally. She knows the dangers of living in a city like DC and there are only two logical reasons for her to be alone in the park after midnight. Either she was meeting someone or she had to walk her dog."

"She could be meeting someone," suggests Jimmy.

Gibbs looks at him, exasperated, but doesn't say anything because he had voiced his thoughts exactly.

"If she was meeting someone, she would have dressed up. And if she was having a date," she points to the dead woman, "she would definitely have shaved her legs and gotten a bikini wax." Tony looks at the agent, surprised by the info, and can't hold his tongue.

"Do you get a bikini wax often, Agent Buchanan?" She looks at him, irritated, and Tony winces when he gets a Gibbs slap.

"Not my business, Boss."

"Go back to work."

"On it, boss." McGee smiles at the camera in his hand, and Ziva is laughing out loud.

He walks away. Gibbs goes to stand by Buchanan, who is studying the corpse. "Any thoughts?"

"He was waiting for her." She looks around. "Probably stalking her. He knew her habits, knew she had to bring the dog to the park, regardless of what time she would get home." She walks around the crime scene and walks a couple of steps towards where there are faint marks of struggle on the ground. She points to a tree closer to the trail, surrounded by bushes. "He was waiting for her there, and pounced when she crossed his way."

"What about the dog?"

"The dog attacked, trying to protect its mistress. He gets irritated and kicks it," she points to some bruised bushes, "it ran away, and he grabs her over there, drags her out of sight and uses the cover of darkness to finish his act."

"We need to find the dog," says Gibbs.

"We need to find the dog," agrees Buchanan, "if it was able to get a good hold on our perp, it might have DNA evidence on it." She looks around until she sees who she is looking for.

"McGee," she shouts.

"Yes," he stops taking pictures and starts checking the files in the memory card, to check if the pictures are ok. He walks in their direction.

"Hypothetically speaking, you are attacked and you have Jethro with you. He goes to get help. Where would he go?"

McGee thinks for a few seconds.

"He would go home."

Buchanan looks at Gibbs, who looks at his two agents and gives the order, "Go."

McGee gives his camera to Gibbs, and hurries down the path to visit the house of the deceased officer with his partner.


	3. Dog Pounds

_**Dog Pounds** _

McGee and Buchanan walk down the jogging path towards the address of the deceased Petty Officer, meanwhile Tony and Ziva pack the evidence and take it back for Abby.

However McGee is curious.

"Would you really do it?"

"Do what?"

"Bikini wax, before a date." He asks looking at her, measuring her reactions. She smiles.

"I've done that before. The Brazilian wax type. I would do it again, if there was a worthy reason." She grimaces. "it hurts like hell, though," she says.

McGee compares in his mind what would be the equivalent on a man, pouring hot wax on his private parts and pulling all the tiny hairs off there, and grimaces as well.

"How come we have never done it?" he wants to know, curious.

"You wanna try a Brazilian wax? Is there something you are trying to tell me, McGee?" She wants to know with an ironic smile on her face.

"What? the Brazilian… oohhh, no, no, not the Brazilian wax thingy," he says, getting her misunderstanding. "The dating thing," he completes, still walking down the path.

She looks at him silently, and keeps walking.

"The whole dressing up, me picking you up at the door, going to a nice restaurant …" he starts enumerating the things on an ideal date. He looks at her to see her reaction.

"You forget the part where I put my most expensive perfume on strategic parts of my body and you keep trying to figure out where the whole night," she says with a smile.

"Oh that," he says, and as he imagines the scene he feels his body responding to the image.

 _Down boy,_ he thinks.

She looks at him briefly and smiles, knowing the effect she has on him.

They stay silent the rest of the way. Once they arrive at the door, they knock on it, waiting for someone to come.

"Maybe we should try it sometime," she says out of the blue.

"Try what?" he had completely forgotten what they were talking about.

"This dating thing," she answers with a smile. He smiles back, and the door opens for them.

NCIS NCIS NCIS NCIS

"Yes my dear, I remember quite well, she has one of these irritating skinny things, barking all the time," says the old neighbor of the deceased. "Regardless of the time she arrived, she would always walk the irritating rat."

"Have you heard it barking yesterday, late at night ma'am?" Buchanan wants to know.

"I think I heard it, and then some banging coming from the apartment upstairs, but it stopped soon. And then I went to sleep," she says. The agents look at each other, and decide to finish the interview.

"Do you have the spare keys for her apartment, ma'am?" McGee wants to know politely, while Buchanan only watches. The old lady answers yes and gives them the keys.

When they arrive at the apartment, they use the spare key to enter the apartment, and they see that it has been trashed. Immediately they get their weapons ready and slowly enter. Plant pots had been turned to the floor, all the earth taken out of it. Books, which previously were held in several shelves on the wall, were all littering the floor. Cupboards and wardrobes had all their contents on the floor as well. Buchanan and McGee walked carefully over the debris, trying to not step on any possible piece of evidence.

"Clear."

"Clear," they holster their weapons and look at each other across the room.

McGee calls Gibbs.

"Gibbs,"

"Boss, we have a situation here."

"Talk to me"

"The place was trashed. Whoever killed our petty officer used her own keys to return to the apartment and make a canvass search through her things."

"Secure the scene, we will be there shortly."

"Thanks Boss,"

"This does not look like a typical rape/murder," he says to Buchanan.

"No, they were looking for something," she says, looking at the picture frames of the petty officer with a tiny Chihuahua on her lap with broken glass all over the place. "What we have to figure out now is" she looks at him "if they were able to find it or not."

NCIS NCIS NCIS NCIS

The evidence from the murder scene as well as the evidence from the apartment was brought to NCIS to be processed by Abby. Meanwhile, they kept looking for any sign of the missing dog.

"What did you find?" Gibbs, with his eternal black coffee in hands, wants to know.

"Nothing yet on the dog, we are still searching the local vets to see if any one reported or delivered a wounded Chihuahua," says Buchanan looking at the picture of Petty Officer Gordon with her dog on her lap, "it's kind of cute."

"If you're fond of rats," McGee mutters under his breath but Buchanan hears him, "you just say that because your dog is the almost the size of a calf," she retorts.

"Finances," barks Gibbs, hoping to change the subject. "She was a model citizen, no strange comings or goings on her bank account. Paid her bills on time, no strange phone calls on her cell or her land line. Most of them are to or from work, anyway."

"We set up an interview with her personal assistant in the Cerimonial Office to check if she had any enemies or such," says Ziva.

Gibbs looks up at them, "what are you waiting for, go!" Ziva and Tony get their things and go.

"Keep looking for the dog," he says to McGee and Buchanan, and walks down the corridor to visit Ducky.

NCIS NCIS NCIS NCIS

The morgue room swishes open. Gibbs approaches Ducky who is looking at some X-ray photographs on the light wall, while Jimmy is carefully sewing the body shut.

"What've you got, Ducky?"

"Oh Jetro, this young lady," he says turning to the body and walking to stand beside of the body "had a terrible demise." He starts pointing out the bruises, "first he hit her with a blunt object, I'm guessing a tree trunk as for the evidence in her cuts, and she falls wounded to the floor. His second hit was when she was still on the floor, when she tried to protect herself. You see here," he shows straight bruises on the arms of the deceased "it's where he broke her bones when she raised her hands in a defensive gesture." Ducky demonstrates, putting his hands in the defensive pugilist gesture. "it didn't work, as you can see, because he grabbed her by her wrists and dragged here to where we found here, where," Ducky sighs "he proceeded to perform unmentionable acts on her person."

"We didn't find any tree trunk with blood at the crime scene," says Gibbs.

"He probably took it with him."

"Cause of death?"

"Strangulation, he compressed her neck until the vertebrae C4 broke under pressure and damaged the spinal cord." He shakes his head sadly, "she was still alive while he raped her, and he broke her neck after the act."

"Any DNA?"

"He used a rubber, but we were able to collect samples from the spermicidal and we have sent it to Abby for identification."

"Any prints?"

"None usable, but I did make a cast of the hand of our killer," he gives the autopsy report to Gibbs, "hopefully, once you have a suspect we can match it to him."

"Thanks, Ducky," he walks away.

"What is Buchanan's take on this case?" he asks curious.

Gibbs smirks, "apparently, she is fond of rats."

He leaves, leaving Ducky and Jimmy confused on his wake.

NCIS NCIS NCIS NCIS

"She was a great person, everyone loved her here," says the deceased petty officer's assistant, with tears in her eyes, "she was always smiling and had a very positive attitude."

"Any ideas of anyone who would want to harm or kill Petty Officer Gordon?"

"No, she was a great colleague, and supervisor too. Even now, when we were preparing the annual meeting of the 9th, and with all the demands and deadlines, she was still a very pleasant person to be with."

"Annual meeting, what annual meeting?" Ziva wants to know. The assistant shows a flier in somber colors. "it is the annual meeting of the 9th USMC Engineer BN, in a hotel downtown. Last year it was in Vegas, but they decided it would be in DC this year and it will happen next week, so we are in a bit of a rush, finishing all the necessary preparations as we were running late with all deadlines."

"Did she receive a lot of pressure to ensure everything was all right?"

"Yes, sir, but that's part of the job, we're always under pressure here."

"We will need a list of previous and current events she has been organizing."

"Yes, sir," while she is looking at the files, Ziva looks around and sees one of the aides of the office looking at them. She quickly looks down and walks away.

"Tony,"

"Yes, Ziva,"

"I'll meet you at the car." She walks in the direction the aide went. She turns into one of the corridors, and finds no one.

"Damn!" she mutters under her breath.


	4. Puppy love

_**Puppy love** _

The following morning, they receive word that a dog matching the description of the Petty Officer's Chihuahua was in the practice of a vet north of the park where the petty officer had been murdered. Once they arrive there, they are informed that, unfortunately, the dog did not survive the wounds inflicted, and it had died. With the vet's agreement, they take the dog back to NCIS.

After a brief autopsy by Ducky, who declared the dog dead by internal hemorrhage due to the brutal kicks on its little form, the agents took it for Abby so she can collect evidence.

She is, of course, heartbroken when she sees the dead dog.

"Oh, how can someone be so cruel to kill such a nice doggie?" she looks at McGee and Buchanan, standing in her lab.

"We are hoping you can retrieve some genetic material, as it attacked the unsub," says Buchanan, looking at the dog lying on the table.

"I will tell you not only that, but also the type and material of the boot that caused these wounds," she points to the marks on the body of the dog, where the imprints of boots could be clearly seen. "Hopefully you can match it to the pair of the suspect, that is," she looks at McGee, "when you have one."

Gibbs enters the lab with a Caf-Pow in his hand.

"What've you got, Abs?"

"We got a dead dog, which I'm still processing for evidence, Gibbs, I'm good, but not that good, they," she points to the agents, "just brought Duchess here a couple of minutes ago."

"Duchess?"

"Yes, apparently Petty Officer Gordon was a big fan of the Black Eyed Peas and named the dog after the vocalist of the band," says Abby with a smirk.

"Abby," says Gibbs, impatient.

"Yes, Gibbs."

"The case."

"Oh, Ducky sent me some trace amounts of dirt he found in the body, which I am to cross-reference with the faint amounts I've just collected from Duchess."

"She was killed in a park, on the naked ground, of course there would be dirt."

"But that's not your natural run-of-the-mill common dirt, Gibbs."

She clicks something on her computer and a chemical formula with lots of number and letters appear.

"It is Bayou dirt."

"Bayou dirt?"

"More specifically, the Bayou dirt found in the southern Louisiana tidal stream."

"How do you know that?" Buchanan is looking at the chemical formula with an astonished expression on her face.

"Because the earth found in the southern Louisiana tidal stream, more specifically the Bayou Trepagnier, has a very specific HMW-DOC."

Gibbs looks at Abby, irritated with her geek speak.

"Abby,"

"Gibbs, have I ever failed you?"

"Not yet."

She hits him in the arm, "Never!"

"HMW-DOC stands for high-molecular-weight dissolved organic carbon, it is like a signature which you can identify the chemical composition of the soil," she clicks something and another chemical formula appears, "and our particulates of dirt have the distinctive signature of the dominance by aliphatic (41%), carbohydrate (33%), and carboxyl (16%) carbon, with relatively low aromatic carbon abundance (10%), which can only be found in the Bayou Trepagnier."

She continues in an animated voice, "whoever killed our petty officer either lived or very recently visited Bayou Trepagnier,"

"He acquires the particulates in his stay in the Bayou and transfers it to the body when he rapes and kills her," says Buchanan.

"All you have to do now is find someone who is from or came very recently from Louisiana."

"Good work, Abs," Gibbs leans down and kisses her cheek, gives her the Caf-Pow and leaves the lab. Abby starts to happily gulp the drink, as a thirsty man after a long trek in the desert.

"We have to check on petty officer Gordon's contact list if she had ever met someone from Louisiana," says McGee.

Abby returns to the dead dog on her table, "and I am going to lift all possible evidence off of little Duchess here."

Buchanan looks at McGee and back at Abby and smiles at her antics.

"Everybody should love puppies. They are very lovable. Just like McGee."

Silence fills the air. McGee looks at Buchanan, and she has an unreadable expression on her face.

"I don't understand."

Abby keeps explaining her theory. "They are cute and huggable, just like McGee, and that's how I love McGee. I love McGee like puppies." Abby says, as if her ideas, as they made complete sense to her, would also make sense to everyone else.

"Uhm," Buchanan turns around and leaves the lab.

"Abby," moans McGee.

"What? Was it something I said?"

McGee leaves the lab and sees the door of the elevator closing, he runs and puts his hand in the door to stop it, and enters the car. The doors close, and he looks down to Buchanan and she has a carefully blank expression on her face.

He turns on the emergency brake, and stops the elevator.

"I can explain."

"There is nothing to explain."

"Buchanan…"

"No,"

"Please, Joy."

"Tim, it is all clear to me. And to her." She laughs, but there is no joy in it, " _She loves you like puppies._ "

"There is nothing between us anymore; it was a long time ago." Buchanan is getting mad.

"You wanna know what is funny," she looks at McGee, and he can see the deep hurt on her eyes, "It's exactly in these moments that you can see the difference between little girls and women." She approaches McGee, and he can see the moment when hurt becomes fury, "girls love men like puppies; and McGee," she pauses to take a deep breath, " _I'm not a girl, I'm a woman."_

She disengages the brakes, the doors open, and she leaves McGee inside.

NCIS NCIS NCIS NICS

Once back in the bullpen, the temperature between the agents had definitely reached arctic proportions. Buchanan went back to her desk to write a preliminary profile, and McGee went to check again any bank and telephone records he could find, but besides occasional grunts and professional questions, they did not exchange a word the whole afternoon.

DiNozzo did not miss the opportunity to piss off McGee.

"Problems in Paradise, Probie?"

"Shut up Tony."

"That's why we have rule number 12, McLover," smirks Tony.

"McGee," says Buchanan from her table.

"Yes." To McGee, "Not talking to you," she directs herself to Tony, "his name is _McGee_."

"Listen, Probette, I…"

Buchanan stands up from her desk and walks towards DiNozzo with barely restrained fury, and says "Call me that ever again," she looks him in the eyes, "and I will rearrange your face in a way no plastic surgeon will able to fix it," she pauses, " _ever_ again," she whispers menacingly.

DiNozzo gulps, and answers in a falsetto, "Okay."

She returns to her desk, but before sitting she glances at McGee briefly, who is looking at her with a guarded expression.

Gibbs returns to his desk, and feels the tension on the group.

"What?"

"Nothing, Boss," answers Buchanan, without lifting her eyes from her yellow legal notepad, where she is writing her thoughts about the killer.

Gibbs looks at McGee, who is staring at the computer screen with a lost expression on his face, and at Tony and Ziva. Tony makes silent huge hand gestures of claws and a cat growling, indicating that Buchanan was pissed.

"Drop it, DiNozzo," she says, and DiNozzo looks at Ziva questioningly, _how did she know?_ It was impossible for Buchanan to see him, from where she was sitting.

Gibbs shakes his head at the antics of his agents. "Any news?"

Ziva answers, "Abby finished and her analysis confirms that the trace evidence of dirt found on both the dog, the body and the apartment correspond to Bayou dirt."

"He probably had it in his shoes when he attacked our petty officer," says Gibbs, looking at the plasma, where an autopsy picture is showing.

"I think I found something, Boss."

Gibbs looks at McGee, and he continues, "I'm reviewing the phone calls both from her landline and her mobile phone, and she has been receiving a lot of phone calls from her office starting last week."

"She was working on a deadline, it was expected, she had a big event coming next week," says Ziva.

"That's not it," he says and puts the phone records on the plasma.

"Last month, she also had a big event and she had an average of thirty, forty phone calls a day on her land line at the office, and approximately twenty five phone calls from her office to her mobile phone, on average, during working hours."

"However, last week," he points to something on the screen, "she started receiving phone calls on her mobile phone from the office, after regular working hours," he points at the records on the screen. "They start small, three or four phone calls after eight pm, but on the night she was murdered, she received eleven phone calls after her normal working hours."

Gibbs looks at the records, "any idea who she was talking to?"

"I'm working on it, the calls go through the main PABX line, and I'm trying to pinpoint the original source of the call."

Gibbs nods, "then do it."

He returns to his desk, but McGee is not finished yet.

"After Abby told us about the Louisiana link, I went through the records and found something interesting. There are records of two phone calls to Greensburg, Louisiana, in the last week alone. She had never dialled this number before. One after the first day with the phone calls after hours and another three days later, when the calls upgraded to more than ten per night. I researched the phone and found out it belongs to the local sheriff in there."

Gibbs' curiosity is piqued.

"Why did she call him?"

"According to the officer I spoke to, she wanted information on Mary Lou White, who disappeared without a trace during the Easter weekend of 1993."

The team is now listening attentively to the narrative.

"She disappeared without a trace on Easter Sunday morning of 1993, on her way to Sunday school with her daughter. Her eight year old daughter was found unconscious on the main access road one week later, but the mother was never found.

"Has anybody been convicted for it?"

"No, the child was traumatized, not able to say anything, no suspects were found, and the case went cold."

"Why was she calling Louisiana, digging for information on a missing person case that happened more than fifteen years ago?"

"Better yet, why did she end up dead after digging for it?"


	5. Deceive

_**Deceive** _

After further investigation, they find out that the phone extension that was calling Petty Officer Gordon belonged to a junior aide, part of the Ceremonial Committee staff. Ziva and Tony return to the office, and request the young lady to accompany them to NCIS.

She is the same aide Ziva saw observing them on that first day in the office.

McGee and Buchanan are chosen for the interview, as she was totally terrified of Ziva's forceful attitude and did not respond well to DiNozzo's charming interview techniques.

The junior aide - her name was Lily Brown - was sitting nervously at the table of interrogation room two when the two agents came down and sat. Buchanan made a show of looking at some files, while McGee started the interview.

"How did you meet Petty Officer Gordon?"

"I've worked with her on the preparation of many events for the Ceremonial Office, I was in charge of checking the RSVP answers from the important guests, and comparing the pre-party list to the final guest attendance list."

"Why have you been contacting her so much, have you found something on the guest lists that needed to be addressed by Petty Officer Gordon?"

"As part of my tasks, I needed to double check with Petty Officer Gordon the confirmed attendance of those she highlighted as VIPs. We were just checking some names that had not answered with the confirmation of their attendance," she says and looks down and left.

Buchanan looks at McGee and silently says, _she´s lying._

"According to the telephone records, you called Petty Officer Gordon eleven times from your extension to her mobile on the day she was murdered. Any special reason for that?" Buchanan wants to know.

"None, ma'am," says the aide nervously.

"Tell me, Miss Brown, you are not from DC, are you?"

She startles, and answers with a trembling voice, "No, ma'am."

"How long have you been living here in DC?"

"Four years,"

 _What are you doing?_ McGee wants to know, looking at Buchanan.

"Where did you live before moving to DC?"

She looks first at Buchanan, then at McGee, and answers in a low voice, "For ten years I lived in Atlanta, but before that I grew up in Southern Louisiana."

_Bingo._

"Have you visited your home state recently?"

"No, no," she shakes her head vehemently, "I have never gone home since I left."

"Have you seen someone who hails from your home state lately?" Buchanan wants to know, and observes the aide fidgetingin her seat, "someone you might have recognized."

"No ma'am," she answers without raising her eyes.

"Does the name Mary Lou White mean something to you?"

The young aide's eyes flutter in response, but she keeps denying. "No, ma'am."

Buchanan decides to cut the good cop routine, and digs in, "Why are you lying to me?" she says softly, "who are you trying to protect?"

"Ma'am, no, I'm not, I…." Lily stammers.

"Because Petty Officer Gordon is dead after you started calling her, and after she requested information on the disappearance of Mary Lou White back in Louisiana, and I really," she leans one her direction, "really don't want to arrest you for conspiring to commit murder and obstruction of justice."

Lily starts to cry, terrified at the possibility of being arrested, "please, ma'am, I will tell you the truth," she looks at both agents, "Mary Lou White was my mother."


	6. Inveigle

**_Inveigle_ **

Lily Brown, born Elizabeth Lou White, starts to tell her tale to the two agents in the interrogation room. She had contacted the Petty Officer to inform her that she thought she had recognized some men at one of the events they had organized in March, the same men that had raped and murdered her mother back in 1993.

She had seen her mother being raped and brutalized by three white males, in their late twenties, who stopped by the road where they were walking towards church and kidnapped them.

After finishing with the body of their mother, they threw it in the Bayou and waited for the alligators to finish their job, and terrorized the child saying that, if she ratted them out, they would do the same thing to her. Of course, she did not say anything for years, preferring to move out, change her name and forget the past.

But apparently the past had found a way of catching up with her, and that's what she tells the agents.

"I recognized them at the reception party for the new city councilman we did in March, they were mixing with the people and, when I saw them, I panicked. Petty Officer Gordon found me crying in the bathroom and demanded an explanation."

She wipes her eyes, "I refused to cooperate at first, but she was adamant that I tell her what was wrong," She looks at the agents, "so I told her."

"She said that she would look into it, and she started digging around maybe two weeks ago."

"You started calling her after hours one week ago. Why?" Buchanan wants to know.

"Because I thought I was being followed. I refused to leave the office, and left only if a colleague gave me a ride home."

"I was becoming paranoid, and Petty Officer Gordon told me that she had uncovered new evidence to bring my mother's killers to justice," she says softly, "but now I'll never know."

"Did she mention what type of evidence she had collected?" McGee is certain that that is what their rapist/killer was looking for in the petty officer's apartment.

Miss Brown shakes her head, "she only told me that killing my mother was the least of their sins, and that they were planning something even bigger here in DC for the next week."

"Any idea what the meant when she said they were planning something bigger?"

"On the night she was killed, she only told me that," her sobs are shaking her now, "they were planning a big blast."

Only the sobbing and gasps of the witness filled the interrogation room.

McGee looked at her with sad eyes, but not being able to fully comprehend the pain and horror she had been through.

Buchanan stayed quiet for a few more seconds. She then stretched out her own hand, took Lily's hands in hers, and squeezed to catch her attention.

Lily squeezed back, and looked at the agent.

"She died because of me. Because she tried to help me."

"No, she died because of them."

Lily keeps sobbing.

"We will arrange protection for you, and for any remaining living family you might have, and I promise you," she squeezes her hand again, and says with conviction in her voice "they will pay for what they've done to you and yours."

NCIS NCIS NCIS NCIS

Gibbs, as team leader, arranged a safe house for Miss Brown. The responsible agents for the safe house dropped by and collected the witness. Meanwhile, the agents worked furiously until after nightfall trying to connect the dots.

"There were one thousand guests at the city councillor's event alone," says Ziva. "Finding the bastards who did this without knowing their names will be the equivalent of finding a string in a needle stack." Tony and McGee cringe at her murdering the English language, and Joy only smiles at her.

"Needle in a haystack, Ziva," corrects Tony.

"Whatever," she shrugs. "What do you think she meant when she said that they were planning a big blast?"

"No idea."

"You don't think she meant literally a big blast?"

"Right now, everything is possible."

"We have to keep trying," she says "for Lily and her mother."

"We will keep trying tomorrow," says Gibbs.

"Ahhh"

"But…"

"Boss…"

"We are all tired and we have been working on this case forty eight hours straight," he looks at each of his agents, and sees the strain on their faces.

"Go home, we start fresh tomorrow." They start shutting down their computers, but Buchanan is still staring at her interview transcripts. McGee goes to her desk.

"Come on." She doesn't move.

"Gibbs' orders, we're going home."

"Just one more…"

"No," says McGee forcefully, closing the laptop on top of her fingers.

"Hey."

"You need rest, food, and sleep, not necessarily in that order. So," he gets her coat, and opens it for her to put on, "let's go," he says, waiting for her to obey him.

She sighs, frustrated, and looks at the paperwork on her desk and at Gibbs, who is silently waiting for them to finish so he can leave as well.

"Ok, but I'm going home," she packs the notebook away, stands up to put on the coat, and leaves with Gibbs and McGee.

"Home?" _Which home,_ he asks silently.

She looks at him, "my sisters are coming over, and we're having a Clan Buchanan meeting." McGee looks at her, and with a defeated sigh, presses the down button. Gibbs is just looking at his two agents, but does not say a word.

They enter the elevator, and the doors close.


	7. Girl's night out

**_Girls' night out_ **

Buchanan unlocks the door of her apartment, and looks around, frustrated. Even though McGee had helped her unpack some of her things during their very rare days off - especially shoes and clothes which she needed to work - most of her belongings were still in the boxes piled in the corner of the living room. Her sisters had offered to help, but their busy schedules working cases for the FBI Office in DC did not give them any free time.

But today, they were coming over, and Buchanan was waiting anxiously for a little TLC and laughter with her sisters.

She throws the keys on the bare table, kicks her low heel court shoesoff her feet and starts working through the mess. Approximately one hour after she started digging through the boxes, there is a knock on the door. She stands up, gets her service weapon from the safe and approaches the door.

"Who is it?"

"It's the takeout fairy!" Joy smiles and opens the door.

"Greetings earthlings," says Hope Buchanan, "we come in peace," she says entering the small apartment. She is not alone, as two other women, one in her late thirties and the other in her early twenties are also in the corridor, and they follow her inside. They salute each other with a kiss on their cheeks, and enter.

"We bring offerings of our goodwill, in form of Chinese, Moroccan and Japanese food," says Faith Buchanan, the oldest of the pair.

The youngest one, Temperance, just shrugs, "we didn't know what you were in the mood for, so we simply brought an assortment of your favorites."

"Are you planning to start a garage sale?" Faith looks at the mountain of boxes openin the living room.

"I was trying to organize my knickknacks and my books, but it will have to wait." Joy shrugs.

"Do you at least have plates and cutlery out yet?"

"Yes,"

"Then, let's feed the hordes." The sisters put the boxes away, organize the dinner table and sit to eat.

A couple of hours and several glasses of wine later, they are laughing like hyenas sitting picnic style on the floor, surrounded by soft cushions. The wine glasses are half full, on the floor between the sisters, and they are using these rare moments to relax and to get an update about each other's lives.

"You should have seen his face!" Faith is making huge gestures with her hands, trying to make her point, "the taxi driver almost crapped in his pants when we asked to be dropped by the cemetery, because the _dead_ were waiting for us."

The sisters laugh.

They turn to the youngest one, "So, how is training at Quantico."

"Ah, it's ok, I guess." She fiddles with her paper napkin, shredding it into pieces, "you guys are almost legends over there, it's kind of hard to keep up with your reputation."

"Don't worry," says Hope, "after you graduate you will make your own name in the Bureau."

"And you will be officially part of the Buchanan gang in the FBI," says Faith, snickering at her younger sister.

"I don't know," she shrugs, "we'll see."

They stay silent for a moment. Faith looks at Hope and indicate Joy with her eyes, who is laughing with her sisters, but isn't totally relaxed. There is an aura of tension around their sister that they recognize quite well.

_Should we ask her now?_

_Sure, you do it._

_No, you do it._

The silent communication between the older sisters was noticed by the youngest in the group, who decides to break the ice.

"So, Joy, what is his name?"

"Whose name?"

"The name of the guy who put this frown on your face and a hole in your heart."

"Ah, I don't know what you are talking about."

"Ahhhh you do, little sister!" the sisters start probing and making fun of her until she folds.

"It is a colleague, at NCIS."

"Uhm… offices romances never work out," Hope pipes up.

"That coming from the lady who is dating her own dentist," mocks Faith.

"It is not a romance, it is… complicated." She says with a grimace. "We haven't defined the boundaries yet and it is a different battle every single day."

"Then uncomplicate it, sis," says Faith, "good things are never easy, and God knows how difficult they usually are for you," she pauses until her sister looks at her.

Temperance is the romantic of the group, and lies down on the cushions on the floor and asks, fluttering her eyes, "is he handsome?"

Joy smiles but stays silent.

"Ohhhhh."

"Tell me more!"

Hope's mobile phone rings, and she answers. After some seconds, "Hey guys, it is Grace," to the phone, "hey Grace, I'm putting you on speakerphone."

"Hey girls."

"Hi Grace."

"What is this? You guys organize a meeting and I'm not invited?" she says playfully.

"You are in Omaha, teletransport hasn't been invented yet," says Joy to her sister on the other side of the country.

"It would be very useful in our line of work," mutters Hope. They all laugh.

"How many units of alcohol have you girls already consumed?" Grace wants to know, curious about how sober her sisters sound on the phone.

Faith looks at the half filled glasses lying on the floor and the two empty red wine bottles on the kitchen counter, "all of them."

More snickering can be heard. The sisters keep talking for another hour, and they settle on the cushions comfortably. Grace disconnects, after promising to keep in touch with the girls. Just to rest, Joy lies her head on Faith's lap, who is sitting on the floor, and Faith starts playing with her dark brown curls, pulling on the natural curls that had always been the envy of her sisters.

"Is he worth it?" Faith wants to know, suddenly. Joy looks at her sister, and carefully considers the question. Faith waits, usually Joy only speaks when she has studied all possible ins and outs. That's what made her a great profiler.

"Yes," she says softly. In a firmer voice. "He is worth it."

"Then fight for him." Joy sits up and looks at her older sister. "Don't let anything or anyone stand between you and him." She holds Joy's face in her hands and says, "God knows you deserve a little bit of happiness in your life. You can't keep people at arm's length forever."

Both sisters smile at each other, and the others keep on laughing and talking for a while.

That night, lying alone in her own bed after her sisters left her home, Joy felt the first spikes of pain in her side, and spent most of the night rolling on the bed trying to find a comfortable position to relieve the waves of discomfort she was feeling.


	8. Obfuscate

**_Obfuscate_ **

_"Mulder, not everything is a labyrinth of dark conspiracy, and not everybody is plotting to deceive, inveigle, and obfuscate." **Scully in Teliko, Season 4, episode 4.**_

When Buchanan arrived at NCIS, she looked like death warmed over. The bags under her eyes hadn't been concealed by her makeup, a silent testimony of a barely slept night.

"Late night yesterday, Buchanan? You shouldn't drink on a school night." As always, DiNozzo couldn't keep his mouth shut.

"DiNozzo," she stops walking, and returns to stand in front of his desk, "piss me off today and I will shoot you."

He opens his mouth to speak, and she whispers menacingly "just try me," and goes to her desk.

McGee follows Buchanan with his eyes; once she is sitting he tries to start a dialog.

"Good Morning, Buchanan."

"What's good in it?" she mutters under her breath, and closes her eyes and rubs her lower back with her left hand.

McGee sees her grimace of pain, and gets concerned. "Are you ok?"

Even though she is still pissed off at him, she is touched by his concern. She opens her bag, takes the Ibuprofen pills out and pops one in her mouth. She looks at him and with a tired voice, says simply "No."

As soon as he looks at the pills in her hand, his eyes go to the calendar on his desk. His eyes pop wide open and a light bulb lights up in his head. "ahhh."

"Not one word, McGee." She growls at him.

"Sure," he leaves her alone, and goes back to his desk silently.

"What's wrong with probette, Probie?"

"Tony, today is not a good day to piss her off."

"What's so special about today?"

"Believe me, you don't wanna know."

Gibbs arrives in the bullpen, and immediately wants to know if there were any developments.

Ziva looks up from her computer, "I ran the guest list names against known terrorist networks and found something interesting." She goes to the plasma, "Two of them were listed on the FBI database as well known members of a paramilitary group in Kentucky." The pictures of two white males, in their forties, pop up in the plasma. "Emmanuel " _Monty_ " Montgomery and Jonathan " _Jack_ " Lee are training leaders of the Kentucky State Militia, and are well known for travelling to other states to organize gatherings designed recruit new members in other states."

"What does the Kentucky State Militia do?"

"A little bit of everything, from pro gun use riots to petty theft and disorder." She shows some newspaper clips, "four of their alleged members were arrested for beating up a black man in 1995, however the charges were dropped and the case was buried."

"Can you place them in Louisiana in 1993?"

"Unfortunately no, but Jack Lee did have a blue Ford pickup truck back in 1993, exactly like the one Miss Brown described as the one used in the attack of her mother."

"So, bring them in," says Gibbs, and going to his desk, but Tony stops him, "We can't," Gibbs turns around to look at his senior agent. Tony looks at Ziva and then at Gibbs, "there isn't any type of records from any of the two members since 1995. No residential address, no phone bill, no bank account, no nothing."

"It is like they vanished into thin air," says Ziva.

"And they just reappeared in 2010at a councillor party in DC. FIND THEM!" barks Gibbs. He sits down and starts to check something on his computer.

The agents go back to their work. Buchanan is sitting at her desk, rubbing her back absentmindedly. Gibbs looks at his agent and sees her discomfort.

"Buchanan."

"Yes, Boss."

He makes a motion with his head for her to approach his desk.

"Haven't heard yet your preliminary profile."

"It's not ready yet."

"Just give me the highlights."

Buchanan takes a deep breath, rubs her forehead with a shaking hand (that does not goes unnoticed to Gibbs' watchful eyes)and starts to report, "According to the initial findings, we are seeing a planned murder here, as the rapist/killer was watching our victim before the attack, and circumstantial evidence ties him to the rape and murder of Mrs. White back in 1993."

"We are looking for a male, between 35 to 55, with a powerful build and strength. Some of the shelves we have seen trashed in Gordon's apartment were made of pure English oak, weighting several pounds, which required a huge deal of strength to move."

"We might infer, even though everything is still circumstantial, that the same elements of brutality found in the murder in 1993 were applied to the murder of Petty Officer Gordon. We do not have the autopsy records of the first victim, as the body was never recovered, but according to the transcripts of the interview with Miss White, the M.O. which he used to attack and murder both victims is quite similar. The difference is that back in 1993 it was a matter of opportunity, while with Officer Gordon,it is one of convenience."

She points to a picture of the autopsy, showing on the plasma. "Rape is never about sex, it is about power. Power to corrupt and destroy." She shows another picture, showing the bruises on the body. "The pattern of the bruising indicates that he wanted to subjugate, to terrify, the sex was just another tool to cement his superiority towards his victim."

She turns to Gibbs, who is impatient at her speech; she smiles a tired smile and continues, "he has a psychological deviation that makes him see women as second-degree citizens, who exist only to satisfy his needs, his biological needs. Once such needs are satisfied, her purpose is fulfilled, her usefulness is over. Therefore, he kills her."

"In the interview, Miss White mentioned that there were three suspects," says Gibbs.

"There are cases where the psychosis is shared within members of the same group, and that particular feature is actually quite common between militia groups." She smiles, "that's the power of the herd mentality."

"Herd mentality?" McGee was eavesdropping on the conversation and has never heard such a term. Buchanan turns to McGee and continues, "it is the same type of behavior that leads people to follow a certain leader and copy the clothes and attitudes of an idol, or that makes teenagers wear exactly the same type of clothes and listen to the same type of music."

She turns to Gibbs, "Individually, they have no expressive importance at all, but put together in groups, or," she points to the screen at the bruised body, "in crime, they are a force to be reckoned with."

She looks at Gibbs eyes and says firmly. "The leader was the moving force behind the rape and the murder, the others who were involved, when they participated in the act, were there just to share the power that leader was seeking. They have no expressive weight to us; they were just cattle following orders."

"What about the blast threat, any chance it can be real?"

She shakes her head, "I've contacted the FBI, they are tracking any suspicious activity of the members of the militia, but there were no hits yet. As soon as something raises a red flag, I will be notified immediately." She grimaces.

"Ok," he is studying her face, and he can see the fine lines of pain around her eyes and how she rubs her back carefully. "Are you ok?"

"Boss, I'm fin.." she can't complete the sentence, as she is hit by a powerful wave of blinding pain, which forces her to fold her body and support her hand on Gibbs' desk. Her hand hits Gibbs' coffee, which turns and falls all over his desk and floor.

Gibbs stands up in order to not get burned, and almost starts to reprimand his agent, but he sees her going totally pale under her normal tan, and falling to the floor.

"BUCHANAN!"


	9. Pain

**_Pain_ **

_When we honestly ask ourselves which person in our lives mean the most to us, we often find that it is those who, instead of giving advice, solutions, or cures, have chosen rather to share our pain and touch our wounds with a warm and tender hand. The friend who can be silent with us in a moment of despair or confusion, who can stay with us in an hour of grief and bereavement, who can tolerate not knowing, not curing, not healing and face with us the reality of our powerlessness, that is a friend who cares. - **Henri Nouwen** , Out of Solitude_

Team Gibbs runs to their fallen teammate.

"What's wrong with her?"

Gibbs goes around his desk and sees his agent on the floor, in fetal position, as if she has severe pain in her abdomen. "Call Ducky!" he orders DiNozzo. He tries to touch her but the mere contact of his hand on her skin brings a moan of pain from his fallen agent.

"Oh, Joy," mutters McGee, who kneels close to her and, ignoring her moans of protest, gathers her in his arms. She immediately hides her face in the curve of his neck, and he can feel the faint shaking of her body fighting with pain. He gives her his hand to hold, and her nails sink into it like claws, and she is obviously trying very hard not to shout at the intensity of her pain.

Gibbs looks at his two agents, and asks, in an irritated tone of voice, "Something I should know, McGee?"

McGee glances at him briefly, and returns his eyes to the dark haired lady in his arms. "It's her monthly cramps, Boss."

Gibbs looks stupefied, "Her monthlies… Why the hell do you know that, McGee?"

_Ohhh busted, Tim._

He shrugs, "it is hard to miss when it renders your partner completely incapacitated," he carefully moves a soft curl away from her face, which is contorted in a grimace of pain. Her eyes are closed, but that does not stop the faint trail of tears she can't hold back.

"She's like that only because she has her period?" Tony is stupefied.

Ziva is, however, incensed, "it can be very painful for some women, Tony," she looks down at Buchanan, "but I haven't seen such a painful episode for a while."

"Oh Dear," says Ducky, followed by Jimmy, "what happened?"

"She collapsed while talking to me," says Gibbs, "and McGee says that it is her monthlies," he says it as if he did not believe that was really the cause. McGee looks at Gibbs in an irritated manner, and points to Buchanan's desk, "her usual medicine is in the first drawer, I saw her popping one as soon as she arrived, but I have no way to know how many pills she took before arriving here."

Jimmy opens the drawer and shows the Ibuprofen pills to Ducky. He looks at it and kneels close to the agent, "How many did you take, Agent Buchanan?"

She doesn't answer.

"She can't hear you, Ducky," says McGee looking at the agent in his arms, "in really bad episodes, like this one, she simply shuts down in order not to scream."

Ducky sighs. "Ok, let's take her to Abby's and you may lay her in the futon, I will see if I can arrange an analgesic injection in order to, at least, alleviate the pain."

"Ducky, can't you do something to help her?" Tony is confused by Ducky's refusal to treat his teammate, who was obviously suffering.

"Unfortunately, Tony, there is no cure for what she has, we can only control the symptoms and wait until the storm passes." He looks down at her, "this is a battle that she must fight alone."

McGee, in a show of strength that surprises his teammates, gathers her in his arms with a practiced easy that shows tender care, and follows Ducky towards the elevators. She doesn't say a word, only whimpers at the sudden movement, and throws her arms around his neck and wets his neck with her silent tears.


	10. Check up

_**Checkup** _

They bring Buchanan to Abby's lab, and McGee gently deposits her on the futon. She immediately resumes her previous fetal position, in a vain attempt to alleviate the pain she is being plagued with.

Ducky approaches and kneels before her, and gently touches her forehead to check if she has a temperature, and asks the agent, "When did the pain start, my dear?"

She opens her eyes, looks at the doctor and answers, in a very low voice, "last night." She grimaces at a fresh new wave of agony.

"Is it always like this?" Ducky, while he interrogates her about her medical background, gently touches her abdomen to see if there is something of notice.

"Just two or three times a year it gets viciously bad," interrupts McGee, who, even though he moved to give Ducky space to check his partner, did not release her hand, "the other times, she usually feels completely drained and achy." Ducky looks at McGee, surprised that he knows this information, and McGee shrugs, "she told me that when she couldn't make it to a meeting due to the pain."

"And do you have any idea why the pain reaches such terrible proportions?"

"Endometriosis," she murmurs.

"What, my dear?" Ducky leans towards her, trying to hear her better. She repeats it again.

"Ohyou poor dear, I'm so sorry." Ducky shakes his head, and turns to the door, where the other members of the team are watching the events.

"Mr. Palmer, can you please bring my medical bag, I have to prepare a codeine shot."

"Is it really necessary, Ducky?" Gibbs is looking at his junior agent, concerned about her state.

"I believe she has already taken the maximum recommended dose of Ibuprofen, and still the pain lingers. I have to render her unconscious at least until the worst is past."

Palmer hurries out of the lab, after Ducky's things.

"Endometriosis is a terrible condition, which unfortunately does not have a cure." He pats the agent on the shoulder, silently asking her to lie on her back. She complies. He carefully starts to undo the buttons of her trousers, and to pull her shirt out of it. "I would like to do a more through exam, so if you may all, please, leave," he makes a motion with his hand, shooing everybody out.

They obey the doctor, and get out of the way of Mr. Palmer, who returns with Ducky's medical bag. He enters the room, and closes the door.

All the others are left standing in Abby's main room of the lab, and only the faint bip of the computers and machinery can be heard.

"Is she going to be ok?" Tony looks at McGee, who has a tormented look about him, in a concerned manner.

"She's tougher than you think; she has been living with this condition for years."

"Is there a cure for this, endomerio…" Ziva gets confused with the name of the disease.

"Endometriosis," repeats McGee, and continues "no, there is no cure, you can treat the symptoms and alleviate the pain, but no medicine can totally stop it as it is directly related to her hormonal levels."

"And how come you know so much about this McGee," Abby is looking at him with calculating eyes, as she had seen the way he carried the new agent in his arms and how he did not let go of her hand until Ducky ordered him out.

"Because…"

"McGee!" shouts Gibbs, irritated at his agent, "my office, now." He leaves the lab, furious, going in the direction of the elevators.

McGee sighs, looks at the other agents, and follows Gibbs, mentally preparing himself to be in the receiving end of a dressing-down.

"When he screws up, he really screws up," mutters DiNozzo, which makes him receive a painful jab in the ribs from Ziva.

"You do not know the whole circumstances between these two," she says, which makes DiNozzo's gossip radar go mad.

"And do you?" he is dying to know whatever secrets she might have unveiled.

Ziva looks at Tony, annoyed, but she does not say a word.

Meanwhile, Abby is looking at the main door of her lab, deep in thought, and then she looks at the door that leads to the room where Ducky is examining the new agent. She squints her eyes at it, as her brain has finally caught up with the evidence right before her eyes, and she makes up her mind.

It is time to go to battle.


	11. The talk

The talk

Gibbs was furious. No, he was beyond furious. Right under his nose, his junior agents (because, despite all the bravado that Buchanan had shown on her first day, he still considered her a junior agent) were breaking rule 12.

He had been patient. He had been kind. He understood the trauma she had been through, losing her old team back in LAthrough a deranged murderer, and her reserve towards her new team, which up until now she had not really warmed up to. And he understood her immediate connection to McGee, who, god bless his soul, had the perfect gentle touch to deal with such a damaged personality.

But to disobey his rules, and to hide her medical condition, that was unacceptable. In the first case, he was mad because his rules were to be obeyed, period. No questions asked. In the second, to hide such a terrible disability could have serious consequencesin the field. What if she had an attack while pursuing a suspect, or during a crisis moment?

They enter the elevator, and as soon as the doors close, Gibbs engages the emergency brakes.

"Boss, I can…"

"What the hell were you thinking, McGee?" shouts Gibbs, staring at McGee's face nose to nose.

"Boss," he tries to start, but Gibbs interrupts him again, doing what he, Gibbs, does best. He shouts at his junior agent, again "What the hell were you thinking?"

McGee is now mad.

"What did you expect me to do?" he shouts back, "leave her there, in pain?" his voice cracks, "alone, facing such agonizing pain on her own?"

"That's not what I'm talking about."

"What are you talking about, then?"

"Why the hell didn't you both come to me?" that disarms McGee, whose shoulders fall in a silent testimony of despair.

"It wasn't my decision, boss," he says defeated, "It wasn't my secret to tell," he looks at Gibbs.

"Whose call was it then?" "Buchanan's," says McGee, defeated. He steps back and leans against the elevator wall, and starts hitting his head back on it slowly, in a very rare demonstration of frustration.

"She didn't want to bother you or the guys with her woman problems."

"Woman problems," Gibbs is incredulous at the ingenuity of his agent, "McGee, she collapsed in pain, that has to be approached as a disability, not as simple woman problems."

"I know," says McGee, tiredly "I know, but that's her call, not mine." He looks at Gibbs, and says sincerely "I told her that she should come clean with you, but she adamantly refused to bother you with that."

Gibbs is confused. There must be a story here somewhere.

"Why?"

McGee bites lower lip and looks down, trying to decide to reveal what he knows or not.

"McGee," grows Gibbs, irritated at his agent hiding secrets from him.

McGee looks at Gibbs, and says "she's got a black mark on her record because of that."

"Because she hid her condition from her superior?"

"No, because she didn't." Now Gibbs is confused.

"I don't understand."

McGee sighs.

"It was back in the day, when she was still a new agent in the FBI. She was assigned to a murder investigation and had to work with a task force, assembled from different sections of law enforcement. She was the only profiler in the group. The Special Agent in Charge was a chauvinistic pig, who had a very clear idea of what a woman should do, and," McGee shakes his head incredulously, "it definitely wasn't chasing murderers across state lines."

Gibbs is listening to him with all his attention.

"Even though she was experiencing excruciating pain during the days of the investigation, she wrote the profile and explained what to expect of the killer. The SAC, however, did not take her opinion in consideration, ignored her insights and publicly humiliated her before the local police officers and fellow FBI agents."

"The killer struck again, and the local sheriff, in a very rare moment of defiance, decided to follow the instructions of the profiler and corner the bastard." McGee looks pissed, "they organized a raid, arrested the bastard and brought him into custody. But, as she did not participate in the raid, the SAC ordered the sheriff to not mentionat any moment that it was thanks to her profile that the killer was caught, and to eliminate any mention of her name in any paperwork related to the arrest."

McGee shakes his head, "they had contacted her to go to the raid, but she said that she couldn't because her medical condition would make her a liability. Thanks to that, the SAC took all the glory for the arrest, and still reported her for a black mark in her file, due to dereliction of duty." He looks Gibbs in the eyes, "she was suspended without pay for three weeks."

Gibbs was speechless. "Did she report him back?"

"Report what?" McGee shakes his head, frustrated, "that he was a bastard with a distorted opinion of how important he was?"

Both men stay silent for a moment. Gibbs decides to tackle the other elephant in the room.

"There is a reason why rule twelve exists, you know." He says, studying his agent, who looks back at him with a carefully bland expression on his face.

"I know, Boss, but there is nothing to tell."

"I told you I would be watching you. And her." He studies his agent, who fidgets a little, "and you want to know what I've seen? I've seen how you look at her, how you touch her," he approaches McGee, forcing him to raise his head and look him in the eyes. "I've seen how you try not to touch her when we arein the field, and how worried you are when she zones out while she profiles," Gibbs sees the scared look in his agent's eyes.

"Boss,…"

"I'm not stupid, McGee."

"I never thought you were."

"Then why hide it?"

McGee sighs, "because I don't know what to tell you." He shakes his head frustrated, "because in order to tell you, I have to know how to define us, and I don't know how."

Gibbs looks at his agent, and silently motion to him so he may continue.

"We've met before working together and we" McGee makes a hand gesture, joining one hand to the other, with his fingers interlocked, "connected. She doesn't trust easily, but still she put down her barriers, dismissed her mental bodyguards and invited me into Buchanan's keep." Gibbs smiles at McGee's comparison. "She has more safeguards than Fort Knox, and she keeps people at length being this super top profiler who can read your mind just by looking at you, but she still…" he makes a vague gesture with his hand, trying to find the words.

"She trusts you."

"Yes," McGee sighs, "she trusts me. When she's with me, she doesn't have to put on her indifferent mask, she laughs and makes jokes, and doesn't have to worry about being reprimanded about being or thinking things differently. She challenges me every day, to be a better person, a better man, and the same way she challenges herself to become a better agent." McGee shakes his head at Gibbs, "I think I've learnt more in these few months about investigation techniques than what I've learnt in years under your direction Boss."

"You're saying that she's a better teacher than me?" Gibbs is incredulous at McGee's nerve.

"No, Boss," he shakes his head, "I'm saying that, while you guys see me as the tech guy, who must be tied to a desk to do research while you are in the field," he says, frustrated at Gibbs, "she sees me as an investigator, who must think and investigate things."

Gibbs looks at his agent with new eyes. "I've never imagined that that's how you feel."

McGee looks at him in frustration, "Boss, before Buchanan's arrival, there were weeks where I didn't leave my desk, I never wentin the field because I wasn't necessary," says McGee. "Since she was added to the team, whenever you try to bury me under research, she arranges a way to take me out of it." He looks at Gibbs, hurt. "She values my opinion in a way that none of you have ever done."

Gibbs is silent, thinking back on how things were before Buchanan's arrival, and is surprised to notice that McGee's right. But his younger agent had never complained about anything before.

"Why now?"

"Why what?"

"Why are you showing all this frustration now? Why didn't you come to me before if that's how you felt about working on my team?"

"Because you never know what you've got till it is gone," McGee smiles, "or in my case, you never know how bad things were until you are shown something much better."

Gibbs puts his hand on McGee's shoulder and squeezes.

"Next time, come directly to me."

"I will, Boss."

"Yet you are breaking rule twelve," says Gibbs, returning to McGee's sin.

"Boss… I … We…" McGee struggle with words, looks down as his hands and tries to gather his thoughts. Finally, he looks at Gibbs, stares him in the eyes, and simply says, "she needed me, Boss."

Gibbs studies his agent, and sees the pain and the fear in his eyes, but also see a conviction that he had rarely seen in him. Maybe, he might have seen it when McGee was fighting to prove the innocence of his sister.

"She's a big girl, McGee." He is adamant.

McGee shakes his head, "she is more fragile than you think on this aspect, boss." He studies his superior, and simply says, "she doesn't trust men, boss. At all. In any circumstance." And he shocks Gibbs, "she still doesn't trust you."


	12. Two worlds colliding

_**Two worlds colliding** _

After a fast examination, Ducky and Palmer left Buchanan laying on Abby's futon, medicated.

She slept for a couple of hours of drugged sleep, and when she finally woke up again, it was to the faint sound of a rhythmic beat coming softly through the walls.

 _Abby's music_ , she thought.

She slowly opens her eyes, and is greeted by green eyes surrounded with black kohl, and two uneven pigtails. The eyes were looking at her attentively.

"Hi."

"What happened?"

"You collapsed in the bullpen due to your endometriosis pain, Ducky drugged you so you could handle it, and now you are awake again. How do you feel?"

Buchanan tries to sit down, and is helped by Abby. She's feeling a faint throbbing in her side, but nothing that might compare to the blinding agony of earlier hours.

"Better, thanks for asking."

Abby gives her a blank stare, and leaves the room. Buchanan frowns at Abby's strange behaviour, she knows she might not be Gibbs' favourite's favourite agent, but at least she had never been outright indifferent.

She takes a deep breath, stands up and goes to the main room of Abby's lab. Abby is looking at something on the computer, she sees Buchanan approaching but does not turn towards her.

"Thanks for letting me use the futon." She starts to leave the room in order to return to the bullpen and to work, but she is stopped by Abby's question.

"May I ask a question?

"Sure," she says, turning to look at Abby.

"What is in it for you?"

"I beg your pardon?"

"What do you want with McGee? What is in it for you? Are you training him as your pet? Do you enjoy power games? What is it?"

"Wow, where did that come from? What are you talking about?"

"Because I've seen you with him. And I don't like it. You can't use him and break his heart. IF you break his heart, I will break you up in tiny little pieces," says Abby, menacingly.

"Because every girl who has ever dated him left him hanging out to dry. Or hurt him, and I'm not going to let you do that. He's MY Timmy, and I won't let you hurt him," she says, irritated.

"Abby," Buchanan shakes her head, incredulous at the scene Abby is making.

"I don't believe he can't see beyond your façade, it's all smoke and mirrors to you, isn't it?" Abby is mad at the new agent.

"How could you think you would be able to steal him from me? I've been there for him this whole time, he's my friend, and I know he loves me, he will ALWAYS love me, so you might rethink your strategy because I won't let you use him as your lover boy."

"Abby," says Buchanan, exasperated.

"I can't believe that McGee fell for your holier-than-thou attitude. He is very smart, but he's never smart with women, you know,"

"Abby, I have scars," Buchanan says softly, but Abby is too incensed to hear her.

"And to think that, all this time, I truly believed he was just testing the waters with you, doing this gentleman thing he always do, a temporary thing, an infatuation,"

"Abby, I HAVE SCARS!" Buchanan repeats herself, shouting.

She finally stops her ranting.

"What?"

"I said," she pauses, just to be sure that Abby is really paying attention now, "I have scars."

Joy has Abby's total attention now.

"Both the kind you can see and," pause "the type you can't." Abby is looking at Buchanan, wanting to know where exactly she is going with that conversation. "For you, it might be easy to," she makes a vague gesture with her hand, "take your clothes off before a stranger and," deep breath, "lay there, vulnerable, waiting for him to cover your body with his and do his business, but I," another pause, and Abby can hear the barely restrained tears in her voice, "I can't."

Only Buchanan's ragged breathing could be heard. Abby was frozen in her place.

"I don't trust people, I trust men even less."

"To take your clothes off before a man, to become intimate with one," she takes a step towards Abby and shakes her head, "I simply panic. Every. Single. Time," she pronounces each word forcefully, as if she must force them out to say that.

"And I did not steal McGee from you. You had him, for years. You used him as a safety net every time you were on a rebound or when you needed to reaffirm yourself with someone whom you knew loved you, regardless of your idiosyncrasies and your habits, but, Abby," she looks at Abby, trying to make her point, "his heart is not a yo-yo, you can't play with his affections like that."

Abby looks horrified.

"But I've never done that."

"Ah Come on, y _ou did it_ ," Buchanan says angrily, mad at Abby for not seeing what she could see, "every single time you used him and discarded him like a dirty rag, just because he wanted something serious, _a commitment_ , which you weren't ready to give him. You hurt him every time you called him just to tell him how great your date was on the weekend, while he had to spend his time alone playing online because the woman he believed he loved was with someone else, enjoying the wild side of life."

"He loved you Abby. He really did." She says softly, and Abby's crying now.

"But even true love dies if it's not nourished. If it is hurt, and no healing occurs, it will wither under the burden of anguish and _it will die_."

"He loves me, I know he does."

"He _loved_ you Abby," with emphasis on the past tense of the verb, "but he couldn't keep on waiting forever for you to decide."

"You might think that he was quite happy with whatever breadcrumbs of affection you threw at him, but," Buchanan shrugs, "people change, things change."

"You changed him."

Buchanan laughs a shaky laugh.

"I would like totake full responsibility for that, but I can't. Because I truly believe it was the other way around. He changed _me_."

Buchanan shakes her head, as if she is incredulous. "With McGee, it is not about power or control, it is only about giving. Giving oneself, totally completely, nothing held back. Whenever we," she pauses and closes her eyes, as if she is remembering something, "are together, he doesn't take or ask for anything, he only gives, he gives himself completely, and I think that is the most incredible gift I've ever seen, because I know that I can't do that, and he knows that I can't, and still he doesn't ask more than what I already give to him."

Both Abby and Buchanan are crying, Abby with huge sobs shaking her shoulders, Buchanan with silent tears rolling in her eyes.

"God knows how damaged I am, but Abby," pause "he healed _me_."

"He soothed my fears, he silenced my demons, he makes me a whole person." She pauses to take a deep breath, "He is like my human credential: thanks to him I can truly interact with people without them freaking out wondering what I see in them as a profiler. After all, if he sees something good in me, then I can't be as bad as people think I am when they first meet me."

"I'm not saying that I love him, or that he loves me," Buchanan shakes her head, "as it is too new and fragile to be given labels yet. But given time, and proper care, it _could_ be."

"I don't need a prince, a saint or a hero, or someone to come slaying my dragons. I don't need more than he already has, because what he has, is more than enough of the things I need. I don't want him to be anything else than what he already is, a silent supporter in my time of weakness."

NCIS NCIS NCIS NCIS

Gibbs nods and, apparently having reached a decision, walks down the corridor towards the stairs, with the intention of going to the morgue to talk to Ducky. The two women did not notice at any moment his presence in the corridor outside the lab.


	13. Decisions Decisions Decisions

_**Decisions, Decisions, Decisions** _

The morgue doors swish open, and Gibbs finds Ducky looking at the screen of his computer.

"Oh, Jetro, just the person I was looking for," Ducky makes a hand gesture, asking him to approach his desk.

Gibbs stands by the desk, hovering over the shoulder of the ME looking at the computer screen.

"Buchanan's condition, what did you find?"

"I've been doing some research on our dear Agent Buchanan's medical file, and what I've found, when put together with what I've seen during my initial exam is not looking good."

Gibbs stares at Ducky, asking for an explanation. Ducky turns his chair towards him, and points at something on his screen.

"She was diagnosed with Ovarian Endometriosis seven years ago, and according to her files, three years ago she underwent laparoscopic surgery to remove a chocolate cyst from her abdomen."

"Chocolate cyst?"

"Endometriomas are often filled with dark, reddish-brown blood, and are also called chocolate cysts because the color of the fluid in the cyst is similar to that of chocolate," says Palmer, who had stopped wiping the medical tools he was before and now was listening to the conversation.

Gibbs and Ducky look at Palmer, who looks at them and shrugs, "I have a cousin who had them, and she had very painful periods, just like Agent Buchanan."

"Is it a fatal condition?" Gibbs looks back to Ducky, ignoring Palmer's comment.

"No, it is not. But it is debilitating, you see," he points to a diagram, showing the female reproductive organs, with some black dots on it, and Ducky starts his lecture, "endometriosis is a condition in which the tissue lining the uterus grows outside the uterus, such as on fallopian tubes or ovaries. Each month during menstruation, this tissue responds to hormonal changes just as the tissue that lines the uterine cavity does. Since it is not where it's supposed to be, all types of problems can ensue such as scar tissue, inflammation, abnormal bleeding, ovarian cysts, painful intercourse, infertility and excruciatingly painful periods which only get worse with time. The degree of pain is not necessarily related to the severity of endometriosis. Women with minimal endometriosis sometimes suffer the most."

"Surgical removal of the cysts does not ensure the cure of the disease, as they might reappear due to responses of her hormonal level."

Palmer interrupts again, "There are doctors who believe that the only final and definitive solution to end it is a hysterectomy, which is not recommended to women still in reproductive age." Gibbs looks at him, silently asking for an explanation.

"Total removal of her uterus and ovaries, Jetro," clarifies Ducky, shaking his head, "which would render her unable to ever have children."

Gibbs stays a moment in silence, trying to filter all the information given to him.

"She never gets a break, does she?" he mutters after some minutes in silence.

"No, apparently the Gods of Fate decided that her burden should be spectacular heavy, but still," Ducky looks at Gibbs in the eyes, "she stubbornly keeps trying, never complaining at the hand Fate might have dealt her."

Gibbs nods.

Palmer is still trying to participate in the conversation, "and what really causes discomfort is not the disease itself, but the lack of information and understanding of those around the sufferers of this disease." Gibbs can feel his eyebrows going up on his forehead.

"Why?"

"Most people ignore the existence of it, and they usually think that the sufferer is just being a wimp, as women normally have cramps and are not incapacitated by them. The stigma related to the strong menses also results in psychological consequences, which result in a deep incapability to commit or to create bonds with the opposite sex," says Palmer.

"Let's not forget," says Ducky "depending on the level and extent of scar tissue, how painful the actual sexual intercourse may be." Ducky looks at Gibbs, and keeps on, "only a man with deep sensitivity and willingness to compromise would effectively bond with a woman when presented with all these facts."

Gibbs looks at Ducky, and then stares at Palmer, silently ordering him out of the morgue.

"I will…" Palmer babbles, "go get a haircut," and hurries out of the room.

Once the door is closed, "he's breaking rule number twelve, Ducky."

"Yes, indeed." Ducky stands up, and stands before Gibbs. "But he is also doing an amazing job being the support net of a woman," Ducky shakes his hand at Gibbs, trying to make his point, "a very wounded woman, if I might add, who up until now only met suffering and pain on her life journey." Ducky shakes his head, "don't you think that they deserve the choice of learning from their own mistakes?"

Gibbs is frowning at Ducky, but does not say a word. He starts pacing in the morgue.

Ducky gets impatient at Gibbs, "I have no way of knowing how deeply affected she was by the death of her teammates back in LA, almost being killed by a bullet and seeing her whole world, the whole life she was used to being ripped from her in one single strike of fate, but I can guarantee you that no one goes through what she has been unscathed," Ducky stands up and stops before Gibbs, staring him in the eye, and says, "and I truly believe that a very important element in her healing is our shy computer expert."

"Ducky," says Gibbs, exasperated.

"You can't deny you haven't seen their interaction, their connection, Jetro," says Ducky impatiently, "since she arrived Timothy has been more outspoken, he has stood up for himself to DiNozzo and his investigator skills are finally blossoming and showing results."

"He feels validated, invigorated, and needed," continues Ducky, "and if you keep on trying to separate them, forcing him to choose, I'm very uncertain if the results are going to be what you are expecting them to be."

"What do you mean?"

"If he is forced to choose between the team and her," Ducky pauses trying to enforce how serious he is, "do not mislead yourself, Jetro, he will choose _her_."


	14. Honor bound

_**Honor Bound** _

Buchanan returns to the bullpen, and is surprised to find a curvaceous blonde in a professional suit flirting with DiNozzo. Her professional clothes didn't hide her figure, just enhanced her curves in a seductive way that DiNozzo was very willing to try.

"Hope, what the hell are you doing here?" Buchanan is pissed.

"Hello dear sister, can't a loving sibling check on her younger sister to see how you are after our drinking binge yesterday?" she turns to DiNozzo, "she could never hold her liquor, while me and Faith could drink any of our brothers under the table." She snickers.

"What is with the name thing? She is Joy, you are Hope, your other sister is Faith…." DiNozzo is curious about the curvaceous blonde, and turns on his total charm on her. The two sisters couldn't be more different than each other. While Joy is petite, with a curvaceous form that showed her Latino heritage and brownish curly hair that softly framed her tanned face, Hope had a model posture, being tall and blonde in an exuberant way, with lily white skin with freckles softly kissing her face.

DiNozzo had fallen under the spell of Hope's charm almost immediately.

"You missed out Temperance and Grace. Father is a reverend, so the boys have the names of the four gospels and we, the girls, have the names of the fruits of the Spirit." She flutters her eyes at him. He drools.

"How many of you are there anyway?" Ziva is just watching the interaction of this new Buchanan with DiNozzo.

"There are nine of us," answers Joy in a serious tone and looks at her sister, "and you are not here for a social call, because we're not in high school anymore, so spill it."

Hope sighs, throws her long hair back in a sensuous move, designed to make DiNozzo drool, and becomes serious again.

"I came to give you the report on the Kentucky State Militia."

NCIS NCIS NCIS NCIS

The team is gathered before the plasma, hearing the information the FBI gathered on the KSM. Gibbs, at first **,** was pissed at having another Buchanan in the buildinginterfering with his case, but she informed that she had important evidence to share, so he let her stay. For a while.

"Emmanuel " _Monty_ " Montgomery and Jonathan " _Jack_ " Lee, together with his brother Joseph _"Joe"_ Lee are wanted for illegal possession of firearms, disruption of peace and threatening and destruction of private property in four different states. The accusations usually occurred after they made meetings to recruit new members for KSM, however, the charges were dropped, or the involved too scared to testify, and they walked away free."

Hope turns to Joy and says, "as soon as your request for information came across my desk I knew we were onto something, as we recently received word that they might be related to a murder of a woman, who disappeared around the same time they were in her city back in 1996 for one of their recruitment sessions and was found murdered one week later."

Joy shakes her head, "our investigation ran into a murder back in 1993, and we even have an eyewitness **,** but we still don't have hard proof that the people responsible for that murder are these guys," she says, pointing at the mug shots on the screen.

Hope smiles, "let me guess their M.O., they kidnapped her while she was walking somewhere isolated, no eyewitnesses, no body was found for a while, and when it was found it was beaten and raped repeatedly for a period of one week, am I right?"

Ziva grimaces, "our victim had her body thrown in the Bayou for the alligators to finish with her flesh. The body was never found."

Hope gets a sad look in her face, "poor creature," she shakes her head, "anyway, we were able to infiltrate KSM, and in the undercover agent's last reports he said that Monty, Jack and Joe had been very outspoken about the evils of the military, who failed in their vows to protect the sovereignty of our country boundaries against negros,Latinos and illegal aliens, and they should take full responsibility for their failures."

"It sounds like a threat to me," says Gibbs.

"To me, too," says Hope, "but up until now KSM had never given any sign of outright aggression towards any institutionalized force. They are very outspoken about their lack of satisfaction with the _status quo_ , but never really taken any steps towards terrorism in any way."

"Our inside man in KSM says that Monty, Jack and Joe, in their last meeting two months ago, said they were preparing something very big, that would, and I quote their words, _'show the corrupt central government how their honor bound citizens were finally taking action against the ineptitude of the US armed forces against the enemies that are taking over our way of life and the American dream_ '."

"Who is the FBI inside man in KSM?" Hope looks at Joy, giggles in a girly way **,** and has a love struck face when she says, "Logan Reynolds, FBI Office NY," and flutters her eyes.

"Logan?" Joy is incredulous, looking at Hope in an astonished manner **,** and Tony and McGee and Ziva are looking at the two sisters, "are you talking about Logan," she makes a vague gesture with her hands, indicating a tall broad shouldered man, "hunk gorgeous fuck my eyeballs out Reynolds, that Logan?"

"Yes," hisses Hope and the sisters moan, delighted, in unison, "ooooohhhhhh." The sisters snicker at each other, which pisses off Gibbs **.**

"Can we come back to the case, please, and leave the hormonal comments for another time?"

 **"** What does this Logan Reynolds look like?" Ziva wants to know, curious about the normally serious Joy's response to the mere mention of the undercover agent.

"Have you ever seen Baywatch?" Hope snickers, full of mirth, "he's a double for a much younger David Hasselhoff, with deep blue eyes, all the bulging toned muscles and the slow motion running effect whenever he walks in a room."

"Hey," shouts Gibbs, "bomb threat here," and the sisters sober up.

"How do we find these three suspects?"

"According to Logan, they left three weeks ago, and they haven't returned to the KSM main compound since then."

"Any idea where they could be? Could they be in DC?"

"If they are the same ones that your witness saw, it is quite possible that they are here in DC planning something."

"Did they receive the necessary training to prepare bomb in the KSM?"

"No, but Monty was a marine dropout." That perks Gibbs' interest, who looks at Hope, "Monty was in the Marines for three years **,** but was kicked out for drug use back in 1992 And he worked on the Marines Engineer Corp."

"So he has the technical knowledge to build a bomb if necessary."

"Has the FBI tracked any shipment of materials that could be used for building a bomb?" McGee wants to know from Hope **,** but she shakes her head, "nothing of importance, but that doesn't mean that they can't build a dirty bomb."

"He is a disgraced marine, who now is part of a paramilitary group which deeply resents the armed forces, and Petty Officer Gordon was preparing a celebration for the US Marine Corps Engineer group." Buchanan looks at Gibbs, "am I the only one seeing a pattern here?"

Gibbs looks at Tony, "do you have that pamphlet of the reunion meeting?"

Tony goes back to his desk, and goes through the evidence folders on it. He comes up with the folder in somber colors the assistant had given then on the first day of investigation. Gibbs looks at it for some seconds, then turns it to his agents.

In it they see a text in white bold letters against the camouflage background, where they could read the motto of the Marine Corps Engineers:

**Honor, Courage, Commitment (1)**

**HONOR**  
Integrity, Responsibility, Accountability  
COURAGE  
Do the right thing, in the right way, for the right reason  
COMMITMENT  
Devotion to the Corps and my fellow Marines

We are proud to show that we are honor bound to fulfill our destiny.

"I think we just figured out our target," says Gibbs.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 1.) This motto was found in the USMC Engineer corp. official website.


	15. Hotel Search

**_Hotel search_ **

The USMC Engineer Corps had chosen a hotel in a historical building in DC to celebrate their 9th Annual Reunion with their families and friends. It was one of those imposing Georgian historical buildings, with huge window ledges where a man could stand for a smoke, if he ever felt the need to be a little bit suicidal, and with red brickwork on the walls.

It also had flagpoles, hanging horizontal from the third floor ledge, where one would see the stars and stripes, Washington DC and the USMC flag hanging from it during the duration of the festivities of the reunion. Now they were empty. It had been completely renovated ten years ago, and now the building and the surrounding grounds, full of trees and a very nice botanic garden, were considered an ideal place to relax and get away from the insane trafficof the capital.

The tranquility of the place was broken, however, when the bomb squad, the FBI and NCIS arrived that evening to search the place.

The bomb squad entered the building and started a canvass search for the alleged bomb threat.

"Do you think we got the wrong place?" Buchanan asks Gibbs, as they watch the movement of the agents on the grounds.

Gibbs sips his coffee, and answers, "Nope."

"All our evidence is circumstantial, we are grasping straws right now," says McGee, frustrated.

"We are in the right place," says Gibbs with conviction.

"How can you be so sure of that?" Buchanan looks at Gibbs, curious.

"My gut," he simply says that, throws away the empty paper cup and waits for his two other agents to approach him. Tony and Ziva give their reports, "the bomb squad is almost done, once they clear the building we can start interrogating the hotel staff, to check if they've seen any of our perps.

"Why not start now?" Gibbs is impatient to start the show.

"The bomb squad is checking them for radiation first," Ziva says, "once they are cleared," she shrugs.

Hope approaches the team, with a sheaf of papers in her hand. "I was able to request a list of the names of the employees and everyone involved in the event, who might eventually have had access to the grounds," she looks at the papers, frustrated, "but it might take a while to cross-reference them."

Buchanan shakes her head, and goes to stand by her sister, "even if we finished the analysis of the list, they might also be using an alias, just to throw us out of their scent."

"Spread out," orders Gibbs, "show around their pictures, try to see if any of the employees have seen our suspects."

"Yes, Boss."

"On it, Boss."

The agents obey his order and go interview the employees.

"Have you seen this man?" "No, ma'am," "no, sir, I haven't"

Tony and Ziva go in one direction, questioning one group, and Hope, Joy and McGee in the other. Hope watches the interaction between Joy and McGee, and smirks.

 _Ahhh, I have to take pictures to show the girls,_ she thinks.

Hope runs and stands up besides Joy, showing the pictures of the suspects to the group of employees. Meanwhile, McGee is questioning another employee, a few steps away, but out of hearing.

"So…"

"So what?"

"He's cute," she smiles at her sister.

"Who's cute?" _Deny, deny, deny until you die, Joy_.

"Your beau."

"My beau?" she looks at her sister, who has a smile like the cat that ate the canary, and points with her head at McGee, "cute tech guy," she sighs, "you always fell for the intellectual type," she is smirking now.

Joy blushes, but ignores her sister, and turns to the next employee in the line, "have you seen any of these men?" and Joy shows the pictures, and receives another negative.

"You two will make cute babies together," Hope thinks out loud.

"I beg your pardon?" Joy is flabbergasted.

"Considering your medical condition, and your age, you have to hurry; your biological clock is ticking tick, tock, tick, tock," Hope makes the motion of a pendulum with her finger, that Joy catches in her hand and twists and gets a small wail of pain from her. McGee hears and asks "are you guys ok in there?"

"Yes we are," says Joy between her teeth, "I'm just trying to find some reason, any reason, NOT to shoot my sister."

He looks at the two sisters, the silent fury on Joy's face, and the smirk on Hope's and decides he'd better not interfere.

"Ok, I will… you know…" he walks away to another group of employees.

"Cute, smart and a gentleman to boot, tell me, does he have brothers?" Hope is still smiling at Joy.

"No, he doesn't, he only has a much younger sister. And you better keep your man-eater claws away from him."

"Relax sis, I have my eyes set on someone else," she looks in the direction where DiNozzo and Ziva are interviewing the other employees. As if alerted by a sixth sense, Ziva looks in their direction and sees Hope's gaze, and coldly stares her down.

"He's already taken," says Buchanan, without turning around to watch the staring duel between the two women, "I wish you all the luck to try to get him out of Ziva's hold."

"She may have a hold on him," Hope squints her eyes, but doesn't look down, staring right back at Ziva, "but he is still eager for affection," and she looks back at her sister, "which I'm more than willing to provide." She grins.

Hope rolls her eyes at her sister's antics, "what happened to the dentist?"

"He wasn't able to meet my _oral_ needs, if you get my drift," she wiggles her eyebrows, "anyway, it wasn't meant to be."

"Maybe if you stayed with him more than the mandatory fifteen minutes for sex, you could…" Joy starts saying, but is interrupted Hope, "fifteen minutes, do I have to talk to your beau and question his stamina? I never spend less than one hour! "

"Fifteen, but.. no. no, that's not what I meant!" she jabs her sister in the ribs, and both laugh.

"What I'm saying," she shows the picture for another employee, another negative, "is if you tried to have a real relationship, you wouldn't feel soo…" Hope shakes her head, "Joy, I'm not you, I don't need to feel the deep magical connection to have sex with someone," she shows the picture to another employee, another negative, "right now I just wanna have fun," she smirks saucily at her sister, "but talking about stamina, how is your beau?"

Joy blushes, "his stamina is fine, thanks for asking." Joy can feel her skin burning under her blush. Hope only smirks.

Tony and Ziva had finished with their group and approached the other agents, who are finishing theirs. McGee, Hope and Joy finish their group, and go with the other two to report to Gibbs, "no one had seen any of the three members of the militia, boss."

Gibbs studies his agents, notices the bedroom eyes Tony is throwing at Hope, her smirking at him and the faint blush on Joy's face. Joy notices Gibbs starting to get pissed at her sister's antics, and gives her a painful jab in her ribs again. "What?" "Behave," she hisses.

"What now?" McGee is frustrated with the lack of results of their questioning.

"Once the bomb squad declares the building is clear," Ziva says, "they will go back as a normal day."

NCIS NCIS NCIS NCIS

While the agents are talking outside the building, inside a soda machine on the third floor, floating inside of one of the soda canisters in a watertight package, is a bomb, set to detonate in a couple of hours, as soon as the morning rush ends.


	16. Living on the edge

_**Living on the edge** _

_There's somethin' wrong with the world today_  
I don't know what it is  
Something's wrong with our eyes

 _We're livin' on the edge_  
You can't help yourself from fallin'  
Livin' on the edge  
You can't help yourself at all  
Livin' on the edge  
You can't stop yourself from fallin'  
Livin' on the edge

Tell me what you think about your sit-u-a-tion  
Complication - aggravation  
Is getting to you

 _There's something right with the world today_  
And everybody knows it's wrong  
But we can tell 'em no or we could let it go  
But I would rather be a hanging on

_Aerosmith –_ _**Living on the edge** _

The bomb squad declares the building clean, and starts to collect their equipment.

"Well, that's a huge waste of time," says Ziva, frustrated.

"Not necessarily, now they know that we are onto them," says Gibbs, "they will get nervous."

"And nervous people commit mistakes," complements Hope, who is getting ready to leave the NCIS team, "I'm going back to Hoover and will deliver these lists to be checked out by our techs," she shakes the thick folders," and also keep the teams with their ears to the ground, any movement we will inform you."

Gibbs studies this other Buchanan, and says sincerely, "thanks for the assistance, Special Agent Buchanan," she smirks at Gibbs, and looks at DiNozzo slyly, "I'm always available for inter agency interaction," she looks back to Gibbs, "agent Gibbs," she still has a huge smile on her face.

Joy rolls her eyes at her sister, "is she always like this?" McGee whispers to Joy, "a female version of DiNozzo?" she shakes her head, and says, "everybody looks at her and only sees her looks, and ignores the fact that she is a karate black belt and has an advanced engineering degree. As people expect her to be an airhead, she simply acts like one and then crashes their party when her intelligence comes out to play."

Hope turns to Joy, "oh dear sister," and gives a bone crushing hug, and whispers in her ear, "mission accomplished, I have plenty of pictures of your beau to show the girls," she leans back and sees an astonished look on Joy's face, "what, you really didn't think I came here just help with the investigation, did you?" she hugs her again and whispers, " _I like him_ ," she releases her sister, pinches her in the cheek, gives a saucy look towards DiNozzo and walks towards her car. She enters it, starts the engine and leaves, leaving a shocked Joy staring at the backlights.

The NCIS agents see her departure and look back at Joy, who is frozen on the same spot.

"Anything wrong, Buchanan?"

"That little rat …" she mutters.

"Buchanan," shouts Gibbs, "Yes, Boss," "move, we're going back to the office."

They pile up in one car, Gibbs behind the wheel and DiNozzo in the shotgun seat, and drive back to NCIS. McGee and the two women share the backseat.

"Hey, Buchanan."

"Yes, DiNozzo."

"What is your sister's phone number?"

Slap.

"Ouch!"

"Not my business, Boss."

NCIS NCIS NCIS NCIS

The following morning, they are still going through the evidence.

"If there was a bomb, the bomb squad would have found it."

"If it is well packed, hermetically sealed, there would be no sign outside for the sniffer dogs to trace."

"Have they received any deliveries these last few days?"

"They received a lot of deliveries," McGee starts listing them, looking at the screen of his computer, "catering, drinks, new machinery for the laundry room, new bedsheets, even a new soda machine for the third floor."

"Why did they get a new soda machine? Did the last one break?"

"Ohh… no…" he frowns at what he reads, "according to the paperwork, it was just a substitution."

"But why?" Tony is curious at the discrepancy, "usually in these types of things they simply change the internal canister where the soda is, there is no need to change the whole machine."

"Who requested the change?" Gibbs feels in his gut that they are onto something.

Buchanan leans over McGee's shoulder and reads the requisition form on the screen, "the hotel manager."

"Contact him and ask why he requested the change."

"It could be nothing," says Ziva.

"It could be something," retorts DiNozzo.

"Just do it," orders Gibbs.

NCIS NCIS NCIS NCIS

"I never requested the change of the soda machine." They are talking with the hotel manager in the gardens, where they are setting up a gazebo for the meeting.

"You didn't?"

"No, I didn't," the hotel manager looks at the papers and points to the last page, where the signatures are supposed to be, "you see, this is not my signature."

Tony looks at Ziva, and gets his phone out of his pocket, "I'll call Gibbs," Ziva looks at the manager, "where is this soda machine located?"

"Third floor, end of the corridor, next to the royal suites. Why?"

"Isolate the area, get everybody out. Who was supposed to stay in these suites?"

"General McDermott and Sergeant Major Lindenberg with their own families."

"Get them out of the building, now!"

"That's funny," he scratches his bald head.

"What's funny?"

"Because the maintenance crew of the machine just arrived a couple of minutes ago."

They rush into the building, and see Gibbs in the foyer with McGee and Buchanan, talking to the receptionist, "Third floor."

They run up the stairs, and once they arrive at the corridor, they see three men in maintenance clothes getting something from inside the machine.

"Freeze, Federal Agents," two of them get guns and start shooting back, and the other gets the backpack where he put something inside and starts fleeing. He runs to the stairs, Gibbs goes back to the stairwell where they came from and runs up after the suspect, leaving Tony and Ziva with the two others.

Meanwhile, McGee and Buchanan are coordinating the evacuation of the building downstairs. They hear the shots, draw their weapons and stand guard at the emergency exits, covering for their teammates on the upper floors.

"Move, Move, MOVE!" they shout to the people in the lobby, trying to get as many people to safety as possible.

Ziva gets a lucky shot on one of the suspects, who drops on the floor, in pain. The other tries to run, leaving his partner in crime behind, but DiNozzo tackles him on the floor and cuffs him.

He turns the suspect to face him, "where is the bomb?"

The bastard laughs at Tony and spits on his face, "you will all die with these pigs," DiNozzo cleans the spit and roughly brings the man to his feet. Ziva, meanwhile, is cuffing the wounded one.

They look inside the soda machine and see that they had opened the soda canister, and by the wetness on the floor they could figure out they had fished something from inside the liquid.

"That's why the bomb squad couldn't find anything, it was sealed shut inside the canister," says Ziva.

"With the strong smell of soda around it, the sniffer dogs would never find it," says DiNozzo.

"You will all die!" shouts the wounded one, being held by Ziva. She twists his arm and hisses in his ear, "I'm not planning to, red shoulder," and DiNozzo grins and corrects her, "it's red neck, Ziva, red neck."

NCIS NCIS NCIS NCIS

Gibbs is still in pursuit of the suspect. They reach the last floor and go to the roof. The young man is holding the backpack to his chest, and runs to the edge of the roof.

Gibbs approaches him with care, pointing his gun to him, "there's no need to end things like this," he says.

"You think so?" the deranged youth shouts back, "they failed us, they failed me! They deserve to die."

"We can help you, just step down and we can talk," says Gibbs.

"Nobody can help me," he says, takes a step back, and jumps.

Gibbs runs, and stops at the edge of the roof.

NCIS NCIS NCIS NCIS

The foyer of the hotel is almost empty, and the last people are being evacuated, when McGee and Buchanan hear a dull thump on the floor right before the entrance of the hotel. People start screaming hysterically and they look at each other and go check it out.

They see people running away from a man who had obviously fallen from the upper floors, either he jumped or he was pushed, it was undetermined.

They shoo the people away, creating a perimeter. McGee kneels close to him and tries to take his pulse.

"He's still alive," he mutters to Buchanan, and they see him coughing blood and trying to say something.

Buchanan dials 911 requesting immediate assistance and McGee leans over to try to hear what he is saying.

"Sir, what are you saying?"

"Die, pigs, die," McGee's eyes look at Buchanan, startled, and she closes her phone.

"McGee! Buchanan!" They hear a voice shouting for them, they look up and see Gibbs on the edge of the roof of the sixth floor, with his gun drawn in one hand and his other hand pointing at something else.

Their eyes follow the direction he is pointing and…

"Is that what I think it is?" mutters McGee.

"You gotta be kidding." Buchanan shakes her head, incredulous.

They look at each other, and then stand around and start shouting at the people watching the scene unfold.

"Step back!"

"Move!"

"There is a bomb!" at the magic word, the crowd panics and starts running away from the building, and they keep on shooing them, "move, move, MOVE!"

The stampede starts, and soon they stand alone in front of the hotel with the fallen man on the floor.

Joy looks at McGee, and reaches a decision.

"Give me your jacket," pause "what for?" he obeys, and takes the jacket off and gives it to her, she kneels down, and starts to gently move the wounded man to the jacket, careful to not compound his injuries, "you take him out of the blast area, I will do something."

"I'll…" McGee stammers at the same time he is helping secure the wounded, "What will you do?"

"Something, that's not important now, just go."

"Joy, please," he says and grabs her arm, forcing her to look at him.

"Timothy," she says softly, looks in his eyes, and begs, "please, go," and walks towards the building. He watches, paralyzed, as she leaves him there alone with the wounded man.

She kicked off her court shoes and, only in her thick winter pantyhose, starts to climb the walls of the building, using the brickwork as support for her hands and her feet.

Tim looks down, and starts to work, using his jacket as a support to the fallen man, and drags him away from the blast zone.

Buchanan climbs up to the first floor, uses the rainwater pipes attached to the wall as leverage and climbs on the first ledge. Once on the first ledge, she starts climbing the wall again, using the space between the bricks on the wall to support herself on the climb. Once she reaches the second ledge, she looks to the side, towards the flagpoles, and starts to climb towards them again.

The backpack with the bomb was hanging from the very tip of the third pole, and, in a movement similar to a spring of a cat, she jumps from the wall to the first pole, and starts to swing her body as if she is on those parallel bars used for Olympic Gymnastics.

Once she gains momentum, she uses the swing to jump to the second pole, leaving McGee to look horrified at her graceful movements.

Gibbs, Tony and Ziva arrive at the ground floor and run out of the building, unaware of the drama happening outside. They have the other two militia members cuffed, one of them bleeding, and they find McGee looking transfixed at something on the third floor.

"What's up, McGee?" Tony looks in the direction McGee is staring and almost bursts a vein, "Boss!"

"What the hell is she doing?" shouts Gibbs, looking horrified at his agent hanging from the bars.

From the floor, they see her swinging on the poles, gracefully gaining momentum to reach the third one, where the bomb is hanging from the tip. She swings and fly in the air, and gracefully reaches the third pole, but the vibration of her body weight on it makes the backpack slip, and as it starts to fall she makes an upside down swing, twists her legs on the pole and gets the backpack in the air.

The team is barely breathing.

Once in her hands, she slowly maneuvers the backpack by the straps and moves her body up again, so that her hands can reach the flagpole. She then moves along the length of the flagpole quickly, and deposits the backpack on the ledge. She releases her legs, which were criss-crossed on the pole, and swings so she can have the momentum to sit on the ledge herself.

Once she is safely sitting on the ledge, she gets the backpack, opens it and looks at the bomb in the watertight package inside. Then she opens the comm link with the team.

"Boss."

"What the hell do you think you are doing, Buchanan?"

"I have no idea, let me speak with Ziva."

"Buchanan!"

"Not now, Boss, just get everybody out of the blast zone," she takes a deep breath, "Ziva, I need your help."

"Talk to me, Buchanan."

"Get the hell out off there," McGee shouts, desperate.

"Not now, McGee. Ziva?"

"I'm here."

Buchanan opens her swiss knife and starts to open the hermetically tight protection around the bomb, "I will describe what I see and I need you to guide me, ok?

"I'm here, just talk to me."

"Ok," she opens it, and there is a mess of wires, a small computer motherboard and a timer, all connected with C4.

"Oh God, oh god oh god… don't panic, no time to panic," she mutters under her breath.

"How much time do you have?" Ziva is twisting her hands, worried.

"If the timer is to be trusted," she pauses, "four minutes thirty two seconds,"

"Describe it to me," says Ziva.

"Control plate connected with copper wires to computer circuitry, and five charges of C4 connected to a timer."

"What are the colors of the wires?"

"White, red, black, dark blue, light blue," she licks her lips, which are very dry, "the order is as follows, dark blue and light blue connect the control plate to the timer and the computer circuitry, white and red connect the charges to the timer, white and black connect the charges to the control plate."

"Any battery feeding the power to the control plate?"

"Just the battery on the computer circuitry, but I can't reach it as it is under the charges."

"Damn," she covers her mike, and turns to Gibbs, "she will have to cut the wires, but if she cuts the wrong one…" Gibbs is staring at his agent, sitting on the ledge of the third floor with a bomb on her lap.

"She will die," mutters McGee, staring at his partner.

"Listen to me, leave the bomb, get into the hotel and run," Gibbs orders his agent.

"No Gibbs, there's no time!"

"Buchanan! Let it be," begs McGee.

"Ziva, which wire?" She has her small cutters in her trembling hand, hovering over the bomb, and they can clearly hear the tears in her voice, "which wire?"

Ziva looks at Gibbs, desperate at the decision of her teammate, and says, "black and white."

"Black and white?" repeats Buchanan, "are you sure?"

"I'm not sure, damnit, just get out of there!" screams Ziva.

"I don't wanna die, I don't wanna die, don't panic, don't panic," they can hear Buchanan muttering on their mike.

She cuts the wires.


	17. Trust me

_**Trust me** _

The sound of the blades of the news helicopters covered the mismatched conversations of the people standing on the ground looking up at drama unfolding at the ledge of the third floor of the building.

The bomb squad was called in, and they carefully collected the dismantled bomb from the ledge, and took it inside the room so they could check if all its circuitry was off.

Gibbs' team was waiting anxiously outside in the corridor for their ok to finally see their teammate, who was still sitting on the corner of the ledge.

"Clear," and Team Gibbs enters the room, and immediately go to the window. Gibbs puts his head out, and clearly sees Buchanan sitting in a fetal position, hugging her legs and with her forehead supported by her knees, in the far corner, in exactly the same position she was since she disconnected the circuitry of the dirty bomb.

"Hey," he shouts.

She is hyperventilating, clearly trying to control her panic.

"Buchanan."

"Boss?" her voice is faint, almost covered by the sound of the blades of the news helicopters flying over their position.

"It's time to leave this place, come here."

"Is it too late to tell you that I am terrified of heights?" she says looking at him.

Gibbs looks down the window, at the three floor climb she did as if she was an extra from the Cirque du Soleil, and smirks, "it would be hard to believe that now."

She closes her eyes and tries to control her breathing.

He puts half of his body out of the window, holds onto the window sill firmly, and looks at DiNozzo, "hold me by the belt," and inclines his body out of the window and stretches his hand towards his wayward agent.

"Come on, you can trust me."

She looks up at Gibbs, and sees her Boss looking at her with a concerned expression on his face. Slowly she starts to stand up. She looks down and becomes pale.

"Don't look down!" orders Gibbs. She looks up at him. She starts to slowly move towards his hand, and stretches her own trying to grab his.

"Almost there, keep going," he encourages her, and after a few tries he grabs her wrist and pulls her towards him, supporting her with his arms around her shoulders.

He brings her inside the room and holds her in his arms, while the whole team converges on them.

"What you did was incredible!" says Ziva.

"Were you out of your mind? You could have gotten yourself killed," says DiNozzo.

She doesn't answer, because she is shaking too much to care. Gibbs looks at McGee who is looking at them in an uncertain manner, not knowing what to do. He wants very much to shout at his wayward agents, the one standing not knowing what to do, and the one shaking in his arms, but it is a crime to kick someone when they are so obviously down.

The bomb specialist approaches the group, and wants to know, "Is it her? Is she the one who did this?"

She looks up from the protection of Gibbs' arms, and slowly moves out of them.

"Yes, I'm the one who dismantled it."

"Ma'am, congratulations, I've seen ten year veterans crap their pants trying to cut the right wires of these types of babies, where did you learn how to do it?"

She sighs tiredly and rubs her face with shaking hands. She looks at McGee who, even though he is standing close, does not approach her. She feels hurt by his indifference.

"My brother," she says softly.

"Your brother taught you how to set bombs?" Tony wants to know, _what kind of family is this?_

"No," she looks at her teammate and smiles, "he taught me how to dismantle them. He said that, maybe someday in my career, it could be a useful skill."

The team is looking at her incredulously. She gives them a shy smile, "he is a specialist in bombs for the Marines. For as long as I can remember, he was always playing with a chemistry set blowing up things." She smiles at some memory, "it is a miracle we reached adulthood with the kind of stunts we pulled."

Ziva looks at her teammate, "but the white and black were the right wires, weren't they?

Buchanan grimaces at Ziva, "actually, I cut the two blue ones," she smiles a thin smile, and shrugs.

Ziva shakes her head incredulous, "you could have died."

Buchanan rubs one trembling hand in her face again, and says in a low voice, "I know."

She slowly stands up, supported by Gibbs, and is surprised when McGee approaches and takes Gibbs' place, putting his arm around her shoulders.

She looks at his face, studying his intentions.

He simply says, "let's go home."

She smiles a small smile, and silently is led by McGee out of the room, followed Gibbs, Tony and Ziva, leaving the specialists with the bomb to do their jobs.


	18. No good deed shall stay unpunished

**_No good deed shall stay unpunished_ **

While Tony, Ziva and McGee were watching the news broadcast downstairs on the plasma, Buchanan was being lectured by the Director.

"If you ever, EVER, pull this type of stunt again while working for my Agency, I will ensure that you won't ever work in any Federal Agency, EVER AGAIN," says Vance, seething with rage. "I don't ever want to receive a call from SECNAV again, asking why one of my agents is doing Olympic gymnastics on television."

"Yes, sir" she says, duly subdued, and briefly glances at Gibbs, who is watching the dressing down silently in the corner.

"And trying to dismantle that bomb on your own was heroic, but dumb, I never expected a stupid decision like that from you." He walks around his table and stands in front of the agent he is reprimanding, "Don't let it happen again."

"No, sir"

Director Vance looks at Gibbs, who is looking at his own agent with a curious mix of concern and anger.

"Dismissed."

Both Agents flee his office as fast as possible. They walk to the squad room in silence and take the steps down, and see the other agents watching TV.

Gibbs goes to his own desk, while Buchanan stops to see herself sitting on the ledge of the building freaking out with the bomb on her lap.

"The camera does add a few pounds," comments DiNozzo. Ziva hits him in the ribs for that.

"Don't pay attention to him," she looks at Buchanan, "You are being acclaimed as a hero on national television, Buchanan," says Ziva.

Buchanan grimaces, "great, I was immortalized being a dork on national television,"

"At least there was a good side to it," says Gibbs, "thanks to that, she earned a new one ripped, courtesy of the director," he smirks.

"Was it that bad?" McGee wants to know, and Buchanan looks at him and grimaces again, "it was worse than I expected, better than I hoped."

"But nothing compares," Gibbs leaves his desk and walks in the direction of his agent "to what I will do to you if you EVER act like that again."

"Boss, but I…"

"NEVER." He barks in her face. She gulps. "OK."

"OK," he walks back to his desk.

"WHAT DID YOU THINK YOU WERE DOING?" says a voice seething with anger. They look back and see a man in his late thirties, early forties, in wrinkled desert camouflage clothes, standing by the beginning of the corridor between their tables. His travelling rucksack, typical of the deployed soldier, lay at his feet, full of sand and dust.

But his most disconcerting feature was the rage radiating from him in waves.

"I said, WHAT DID YOU THINK WERE DOING, PEANUT?" shouts the man, totally enraged.

"Johnny, what are you doing here?" Buchanan is astonished at his presence in the NCIS squad room. He should have been in Afghanistan. The rest of the team is wondering, _who the hell is this guy?_

"Answer the damn question." His voice is seething with anger.

"Ah… well, I…I didn't think…."

"Of course you didn't think." He approaches her and grabs her by her shoulders and shakes her forcibly. "You weren't thinking. You weren't using that God-given oversized brain to do that. To think."

"But Johnny, I had no choice, people could have died…"

He shakes his head. "We always have a choice." In a more controlled voice, he continues. "First rule on dismantling bombs that we learn when we start working in the bomb squad _, If you´re not absolutely sure you can do it, walk away."_

She looks down, properly chastened. It was the third person who was mad at her for what she has done.

"I'm sorry, Johnny," she says in a barely audible voice.

He brings her to his chest and gives her a bone crushing hug. He is trembling lightly with the force of the fear he felt when he first saw the broadcast of the action of that morning.

"Don't you ever, _ever_ , do that again. I don't think I can live with that." His voice is shaking, and his arms are hugging her tight to his chest.

She nods, her head still in his chest. They fall apart.

"You are supposed to be sitting behind a desk, using that big brain of yours to do fancy predictions and leaving others to blow themselves up." She smiles at him.

She looks around, and sees her team all looking curiously at the stranger hugging her.

She makes the introductions.

"Boss, guys, this is US Marine Sergeant First Class, John Buchanan, my oldest brother."

Sergeant Buchanan looks at Gibbs' posture and salutes.

"Special Agent Leroy Jetro Gibbs, ex-gunnery sergeant." they shake hands. Gibbs feels the barely controlled strength and the calluses on the fingers of Sergeant Buchanan, testimony of years of hard work in the Corps.

"Where do you serve, Sergeant Buchanan?"

"I serve in the US Marine bomb squad in Afghanistan, sir."

"When did your transport land?" she wants to know. He wasn't scheduled for leave for at least two more weeks.

He looks at his watch. "Three hours ago," he looks at her, disapprovingly "just in time to see my little sister go completely insane and try to dismantle a bomb on national television, hanging from a ledge off the third floor of a building."

She cringes.

"Sorry."

"Sorry doesn't cover it, if you think I'm pissed, you should talk to mom."

"Mom," she swallows with difficulty. "You spoke to… mom?" She whispers with a faint voice.

The phone starts ringing. Both Buchanans look at it. Joy has a terrified expression on her face, and her skin goes pale with fear, while John can barely hide his mirth.

"Aren't you going to answer that, peanut?"

"Maybe I should just let it ring."

"It would only make it worse. You know her."

She cringes at the telephone, which is still ringing. Everyone is looking at her, when she slowly approaches her desk and answers the phone.

"Joy Buchanan speaking."

Gibbs, Tony, Ziva and McGee can hear the shouting from where they stand.

"Ma" she tries to say.

More shouting can be heard.

"I can… I can explain"

"It wasn't like that."

"Ma" she tries to say again.

"Why is your mother so pissed?" Ziva asks Sergeant Buchanan, curious to understand the inner workings of their family. He smiles down at the pretty agent, and explains, "we have a basic policy back home that we, all the kids, adopt: _whatever you do, don't piss off Mom_."

The team is looking at the Sergeant in a confused manner, so he completes "Mom is a weapons specialist for the US Air Force. She designs weapons systems for the airplanes and..." he looks back at Joy "sometimes, for the Navy subs as well."

His grin gets bigger, "you never knew what kind of new toy she was putting together in her office, as it was a forbidden zone for us. If we were caught inside her office, we probably wouldn't have been able to sit for a month."

"If we disobeyed, or if we did a stunt like the one Joy just did," he pauses and shakes his head, "the thrashing would be phenomenal." The agents look back at Joy, who is sitting with a glazed expression on her face listening to the shouting in her ear, just agreeing here and there.

"Ok." She puts the phone back in the cradle.

Gibbs is curious about the matriarch of the Clan Buchanan, "So?"

"She said that if I ever tried a stunt like that again, I had better be prepared for a heat guided missile coming in my direction," she says in a faint voice, astonished.

Gibbs smirks, "I like her already."

Tony, Ziva, McGee and Joy look at him, horrified.

Sergeant Buchanan clasps his hands, "now, I need a shower, food and some rest, not necessarily in this order, so I can go see my own family," he looks at Joy, "wanna come with me, sis?"

Joy looks at Gibbs, who nods his permission, "let me grab my purse."

She gets her belongings and follows her brother out of the bullpen. The team can hear them teasing each other, and before the elevators close down, they hear:

"So, are you sleeping with anyone?"

"Johnny!"

"Hey, peanut, I need to know, so I can punch the bloody bastard to a bloody pulp." The elevator door closes.

The team turns around and looks at McGee, who had acquired a pasty white look and was ready to faint.

Tony decides to disturb him even more.

"Nice family, uhm?"

Ziva is curious about another thing, "did he just call her _peanut_?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Companion Stories are: Sexual Healing and Misery. 
> 
> Stay tuned


End file.
